Listening to the Land

Listening to the Land is a nine-month photography exploration of the Bartram Trail near Highlands, NC. Influenced by the legacy of William Bartram, photographers of all levels will be invited to enter an intimate world where the landscape is alive and waiting to be met, understood, and loved. Through workshops and dynamic online engagement, Kinship will help photographers cultivate a faithful conversation with the land that explores the rich biodiversity of place while honoring each photographer’s unique way of seeing and responding to the land.

Listening to the Land will open in December 2022 with an inspiring project-shaping exhibition featuring the work of 6-10 core Kinship photographers created in response to a designated section of the Bartram trail. The exhibition will introduce our community to the Kinship team and serve as the project’s launch.

This nine-month grassroots visual conversation will be curated into a culminating community exhibition in fall of 2023 that maps participants conversation with the land while revealing the delicate ecosystems that often go unobserved in public greenspaces. Here, viewers are invited to step into an intimate world where landscape images are revealed not as objects to be admired but as intimate portraits of a sovereign and alive place waiting to be met, cared for, and loved.