While galleries remain closed, and the streets of London remain hushed and subdued, a photography exhibition is breathing new life into the city’s retail heart. ‘A Return to Nature’ is a joint outdoor show by photographers Marco Kesseler and Cameron Bensley and is displayed across Selfridges’ flagship store windows.
The exhibition celebrates the beauty and fragility of the natural world, our relationship with it, and sparks a dialogue around the impacts of climate change.
The work of British photographer Marco Kesseler is deeply entwined with social engagement. His series Polytunnel delves into the concealed landscape of agricultural food production spaces and creates tensions between chaos and control; artificial and environmental.
Shot in locations such as Devon and the Midlands, Kessler the series charts the different stages of the agricultural calendar, documenting the cycle of planting, growing, harvesting and lying fallow. Here, plastic polytunnels and the tightly-controlled cultivation process within are juxtaposed with unruly natural surroundings. In these ethereal images, which zoom in on the peripheral elements of agricultural production, nature ruptures the plastic shrouds and establishes itself in structural cracks - allegories of environmental resilience against harmful human interventions.
On Selfridges’ Orchard and Duke Street windows, London-based Cameron Bensley confronts both the potent power of the global natural world and its fragility under the grips of global warming. Bensley, who also works as an in-house fashion photographer at Selfridges, took to imposing natural landscapes under threat, such glaciers shielded by thermal sheeting.
‘A Return to Nature’ is both a celebration of the natural world and a plea for its conservation. The exhibition – which is also available to view online – offers city dwellers a chance to embrace the great outdoors while the city’s busiest street remains fallow.
Polytunnel
Installation
INFORMATION
‘A Return to Nature’ will be on view online and in the windows of Selfridges, London until the store reopens. selfridges.com
ADDRESS
400 Oxford St
London W1A 1AB
-
Clocking on: the bedside analogue timepieces that won’t alarm your aestheticWe track down the only tick-tocks that matter, nine traditional alarm clocks that tell the time with minimum fuss and maximum visual impact
-
Architecture, sculpture and materials: female Lithuanian artists are celebrated in NîmesThe Carré d'Art in Nîmes, France, spotlights the work of Aleksandra Kasuba and Marija Olšauskaitė, as part of a nationwide celebration of Lithuanian culture
-
‘There is more work to be done in the garden’: Dries Van Noten on deciding to grow his burgeoning beauty lineFor Dries Van Noten, 2024 has been a landmark year. After stepping down from fashion in June, the designer speaks to Wallpaper* about a new focus on nurturing the brand’s beauty line and spending more time in his beloved garden
-
Meet Kenia Almaraz Murillo, the artist rethinking weavingKenia Almaraz Murillo draws on the new and the traditional in her exhibition 'Andean Cosmovision' at London's Waddington Custot
-
Inside Jack Whitten’s contribution to American contemporary artAs Jack Whitten exhibition ‘Speedchaser’ opens at Hauser & Wirth, London, and before a major retrospective at MoMA opens next year, we explore the American artist's impact
-
Preview the Jameel Prize exhibition, coming to London's V&A, with a focus on moving image and digital mediaThe winner of the V&A and Art Jameel’s seventh international award for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition will be showcased alongside shortlisted artists
-
Genesis Belanger is seduced by the real and the fake in LondonSculptor Genesis Belanger’s solo show, ‘In the Right Conditions We Are Indistinguishable’, is open at Pace, London
-
Francis Bacon at the National Portrait Gallery is an emotional tour de force‘Francis Bacon: Human Presence’ at the National Portrait Gallery in London puts the spotlight on Bacon's portraiture
-
Frieze Sculpture takes over Regent’s ParkTwenty-two international artists turn the English gardens into a dream-like landscape and remind us of our inextricable connection to the natural world
-
Don’t miss these artists at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair 2024As the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair returns to London (10-13 October 2024), here are the artists to see
-
Es Devlin’s large-scale choral installation celebrates London’s displaced populationEs Devlin has partnered with UK for UNHCR on a free and open-to-all exhibition, ‘Congregation’, in London from 3-9 October 2024
