What does nature mean to you? Seems like an easy question at first, but when you get down to it, it’s not quite as straightforward as you think. How do you connect to nature? Is it the same as when you were a child? What even is nature and does it still exist today? These are big questions with different answers depending on who you ask, and that’s just what my latest project is trying to explore.
I work in the digital content team at Wellcome Collection, a museum and library in London exploring the connections between health, art and life. Our upcoming exhibition, ‘’ (opening 22 June), will look at how we connect with nature today using objects we’ve borrowed from members of the public. These objects will tell a story about their owner’s relationship with nature and create a collective snapshot of how we think about it in the 21st century.
But we want everyone else to have a say too! By sharing your photos about nature online and telling us why they’re meaningful to you, we can start to understand how people relate to the natural world today. The project I’ve developed to do this is called and you can take part right now.
I’m really excited to see how differently people respond and to discover the range of ways they connect to nature (or not!). For some, nature is a very specific concept, one of rolling hills or dense forest; for others, it might be more about their back gardens or signs of animals foraging in their bins. I want to capture all of this and find out why these moments are meaningful to people today.
For me, nature is something I need to regularly spend time in (or with?), but I don’t necessarily think of it as “other”, as somewhere separate that I can only visit occasionally. It’s all around me. Having said that, I do find it more difficult to get my nature fix living in London; every occasional late-night encounter with an urban fox is magical and surprisingly touching, but it still feels different to being totally immersed in countryside.
To make Sharing Nature more interesting, I’ve come up with a different theme to focus on each fortnight, from “consume” to “dead”. These can be interpreted however you choose; in fact, I want people to use their imagination and surprise me! What one person might share under the theme “green” (perhaps their favourite wellies) will be totally different to the next person (their recycling bin or Astroturf garden); it’s those juxtapositions of perspectives I can’t wait to see!
It’ll be fascinating to explore the variety of ways people respond to the themes and to hear what they think about them. There’s no right answer and I hope it will offer some kind of insight into how people relate to nature. All the themes and their dates are on .
Inspired by Springwatch, the first and current theme is “WILD”.When you think of nature, what does "wild" mean to you? Perhaps you let your garden grow out of control or love to explore the wilderness. Maybe you try your best to tame nature or keep it at bay. Are the foxes making themselves at home in your garden a sign of the wild trying to reclaim its place or is the very concept of "wild" redundant in the 21st century?
Here’s my offering: it’s my back garden in south London, overgrown and messy, but pleasingly wild. See if you can spot the not-so-wild mini panther!
You can share your photos of WILD on social media using #SharingNature17 or . You can find the full instructions to take part .
If you want to help shed light on our relationship with nature today I hope you'll submit photos over the summer for as many themes as you like and explore the range of offerings other people share too!
How far will your photo get?