Ground - Horizon - Sky
Blast Radius worked 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 coincided with the major Constable 250 celebration exhibitions in 2026 at Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich. The conference offered 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. The conference was in partnership with the Paul Mellon Centre’s Generation Landscape research programme,
Day 1: 16.7.26 Conference at Suffolk Archives, The Hold, Ipswich
Highlights of the programme included 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, Jevan Watkins Jones and Andy Corrigan with Eleanor Ling (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).
Together, these talks ranged from studies of clouds and horizons, to post-war painting, architecture, walking as research practice, and digital interpretations of landscape.
Day 2: 17.7.26 Challenge Lab, Flatford Mill, National Trust
The second day shifts from discussion to experimentation, with a collaborative Challenge Lab featuring a talk by artist Richard Denny and practical workshops and guided walks in Constable Country led by artist Peter Harrap, and Andy Corrigan with Eleanor Ling (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). The Challenge Lab enabled offering participants the opportunity to exchange knowledge and test ideas in the landscape itself and reflect on Constable’s contemporary legacy.
