Unseen is a photographic project centred around a search for the sublime and spirit of place. It examines the invisible within both the inner and outer landscapes through a series of walks on the key dates of nature’s calendar. Rooted in Romanticism, psychogeographical and hauntological ideas, Unseen is about exploring sites of spiritual, historical and archaeological significance and my attempts to capture the atmosphere and essence of these places. My interests in myth, lore and the occult also drive the project as I seek out places steeped in stories.
With the support of Arts Council England, I created a body of work for exhibition in public spaces and published a photobook Unseen. The project succeeded in connecting people with their local landscape through guided walks, art exhibitions, talks as well as photography and zine making workshops. The photobook includes an essay by landscape writer Justin Hopper and is available here.
Praise for Unseen: In Search of the Sublime and Spirit of Place
“Rachel Poulton’s work is simunltaneously intimate and universal, timeless and of the now. She takes her meandering view of a landscape and fixes her shared attention with a gaze. She does more than document the effects of people on the environment, she shows the magical balance that people require to preserve the best of themselves - leaning back into the world that creates their myths. Trees become totems, hills become something else. The world that unfolds shows the audience that they are participant and reflection. Poulton has an almost egoless eye, more keen to share and connect subject to viewer than express anything with urgency. In doing this, she presses into the importance of present.”
“I absolutely loved the Unseen photobook - incredible images, beautifully composed and sequenced. Many of the locations are ones that I’ve visited and yet you bring such a distinctive perspective that it is as if I am seeing everything afresh. As a mark of its success in this regard, I immediately had the urge to go out and see the places again, my senses renewed by your inspiration.”
Unseen Zine
Unseen Zine - documenting intuitive walks inspired by the dérive of the surrealists and situationists, the Romantic reveries of Rousseau and Blake, folklore, film and literature. Each walk is a sensory experience taking in the historical, topographical, and psycho-spiritual ambiences then presented in Unseen - a collectable zine published periodically.
Each issue is available to order in the shop online and in a number of independent bookstores, libraries and galleries around the country.