Blast Radius are working in collaboration with Constable expert curator Emma Roodhouse at Colchester & Ipswich Museums to convene a two-day conference that positions Constable’s life and work as a lens through which to re-examine historic and contemporary engagements with landscape.

Ground – Horizon – Sky coincides with the major Constable exhibitions at Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, and offers a timely platform to reconsider how landscapes have been seen, sensed, represented, contested, transformed and how they continue to shape artistic and ecological thinking today.

This conference is in partnership with the Paul Mellon Centre’s Generation Landscape research programme,

Day 1: Thursday 16 July at Suffolk Archives, The Hold, Ipswich

Highlights of the programme include a keynote address by renowned Constable expert Anne Lyles, alongside papers from Nicola Moorby (Tate), Hillary Mushkin (California Institute of Technology), Kate Brock (Researcher Royal College of Art), Clare St George (Writer and Editor), and artists Chris Dobrowolski, Richard Denny, Jevan Watkins Jones, and Andy Corrigan with Eleanor Ling (Fitzwilliam Museum).

Together, these talks range from studies of clouds and horizons, to post-war painting, architecture, walking as research practice, and digital interpretations of landscape.

Day 2: Friday 17 July, Flatford Mill, National Trust

The second day shifts from discussion to experimentation, with a collaborative Challenge Lab featuring practical workshops led by artist Peter Harrap, and guided walks in Constable Country, offering participants the opportunity to test ideas in the landscape itself and reflect on Constable 250.