Terra Incognita: On This Land | In This Land | Of This Land by Rachel Rimell

Terra Incognita: On This Land | In This Land | Of This Land is a contemplative exploration of the conflicted concepts of land access and ownership, revealing uncomfortable truths about the ways in which physical boundaries and social constructs shape our relationship with, and stewardship of, the land. It challenges the framing of landscape as a resource to be owned or viewed, rather than a living environment that we are inherently part of, highlighting our human displacement from the natural world. The series exposes how sanctioned routes reinforce our disconnection, disassociation and estrangement from the land. These curated paths reflect a deeper learned cultural response to set ourselves apart as humans,  as ‘other’, glimpsing the land from afar, becoming detached from our innate connectivity and symbiotic relationship. As the imagery grows increasingly distorted and dreamlike, it reveals our discoloured perception of the landscape and the psychological toll of separation from nature. The artist’s ghosted presence within the landscape symbolises a quiet act defiance to reclaim our human place within the landscape. Terra Incognita unravels our inherited perceptions of the land, exploring the act of ‘trespass’. In doing so, it reveals a deeper truth: that to reconnect with the land, we must first reclaim our right to belong within it. 

Artist bio

Rachel Rimell is an award-winning lens-based artist based in Malton, North Yorkshire. Her practice examines human kinship with the land, the sea, and the sky. Her work explores how connection, estrangement, and impermanence shape our relationship with the natural world. Grounded in questions of perception, memory, and transience, her work considers how individual experience influences our sense of belonging within wider ecological systems. Trained as a photojournalist, she continues to undertake commissioned work alongside her conceptual practice. She works across digital and experimental analogue photography, performance, moving image, and sound. In recent years, her approach has become increasingly interdisciplinary and performative, creating space for embodied experience and sensory engagement. Rachel previously worked as Chief Press Officer to the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser on climate change at DEFRA. Working closely with climate scientists on public-facing research and policy to communicate climate science to wide audiences revealed the tension between long-term environmental responsibility and short-term political and economic priorities. The experience exposed the challenge of fostering care for a natural world that many people feel increasingly disconnected from, and how difficult it is to reconnect to a space we primarily view as an abstract resource rather than a lived environment. This continues to underpin her artistic inquiry, informing her focus on lived connection to place. Rachel holds an MA in Photography from Falmouth University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She was a winner of Portrait of Britain (2020) and a finalist in The Guardian’s Women Behind the Lens (2019). She has also been shortlisted for RPS IPE165 (2023/24), Belfast Photo Festival (2022), and Photo North Emerging Artist (2023). Her work has been published in Stir The Pot, Portrait of Britain Vol. 3, and Rankin’s This Is Britain, and featured in Source Magazine, The Guardian, Vogue Italia, and the BBC.

@rachelrimellphotography www.rachelrimellphotography.co.uk

Exhibition information

Where and when?

This exhibition is available to view in the Forest Arts exhibition space in Low Dalby Courtyard. Situated next to Courtyard Cafe. The exhibition runs from 7 March until 28 June 2026, open daily from 10am to 4pm.

Cost and booking information

This exhibition is free to all. Parking charges apply. No booking required.