Muirburn Series

Drawings from Charlotte Smithson’s Muirburn series respond to patches of North Yorkshire moorland, which have been set fire to and scorched through the practice of muir burning. 

Meditative marks are made with charred heather and reference the shape of the burn-scar left on the land where the charcoal was found. Heather burning on the UK’s moorland peat bogs negatively impacts water quality, river ecology, carbon storage and habitat diversity.

Each drawing scribes words of apology and hope for these landscapes and systems of life they sustain, as though site specific prayers.