Brook, R., Csepely-Knorr, L., 2021.

You Love Me Really: Journeys Through Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure

This small publication came about as a product of circumstance. Its contents stem from a series of three artists' conversations convened in January 2021 as part of a research network supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The network was part of a much bigger project around Landscape Decision Making. Our project was to host four meetings to try and understand the qualitative values of the landscapes around sites of post-war infrastructure. Our second meeting, originally due to be held in September 2020, was postponed because of the pandemic. It was about artists who work with infrastructural landscapes. When we considered hosting it online, the artists, who were supposed to be presenting to our small network, agreed to talk to one another, in pairs and in public. With the help of the Modernist Society we advertised the artists' conversations, and more than 300 people were able to watch and engage with the artists as they discussed their own motivations and values ascribed to such apparently mundane subjects. The ensuing conversations and discussions were rich and varied, and seemingly tapped into others' underlying appreciation for landscapes not typically viewed as valuable. In the following pages we present the outcomes of creative pairings between literary and visual artists with a short introduction that summarises some of our own thoughts about landscape, architecture, art and post-war Britain.