The Right Of Way is a continuation of the New Landscapes Institute’s investigations into the transformation of cultural routes and trails. In Australia, public lands are referred to as Crown Land. Yet these public assets are being rapidly sold off. In particular, shared rural spaces known as ‘travelling stock routes’ have historically been used to move livestock and horses, and also act as wildlife corridors to protect endangered habitats. In Australia’s traumatic narrative of dispossession, they offer access to significant indigenous sites and follow ancient trading routes. The New Landscapes Institute will explore the right to travel for both humans and animals within urban and rural contexts in the UK. The UK ‘Right of Way’ laws have been central to the movement of food and produce, yet these commons serve to exclude as much as they seek to provide. The Right of Way will use this opportunity to explore how battles for these rights are still being fought, what new uses these landscapes can offer, and how artists and architects can design spaces to create new encounters with landscape.

This installation is an adaptation of the traditional Kissing Gate. Able to be both open and closed at the same time, it gives more than one user the opportunity to enter this in-between zone and to allow or deny access to each other. It invites the public in to contemplate the many obstructions that prevent free access and use of rural spaces.

Public event: Redrawing the Definitive Map. Discussion and Screening. Saturday September 17, 5pm, The Empire Remains Shop.