CAL FLYN ON WRITING THE MYSTERY OF WILDERNESS

CAL FLYN ON WRITING THE MYSTERY OF WILDERNESS

Cal Flyn is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland. Her first book, Thicker Than Water (2016)—about frontier violence in colonial Australia—was a Times book of the year. Her second book, Islands of Abandonment (2021)—about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places—won the John Burroughs Medal, the American Academy of Arts & Letters’ E.M. Forster Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year prize. It was also shortlisted for numerous literary awards including the Wainwright Prize, the British Academy Book Prize, the Ondaatje Prize, and the Baillie Gifford Prize. Her third book, The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness will be released in 2026. Cal’s journalistic writing has been published in Granta, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times, The Economist, and others. She is the deputy editor of the literary recommendations site Five Books, and a regular contributor to The Guardian. Cal was previously writer-in-residence at Gladstone’s Library and at the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland. She is a fellow of the MacDowell and Yaddo artists colonies. Follow her on Instagram or visit her website to connect https://www.calflyn.com!

KATIE GROVE ON WEAVING WILD BASKETS

Katie Grove is an artist, educator, and author whose passion is to inspire both viewers of her art and students in her classes to build a relationship with the plants growing around them. She teaches basketry from her studio in the Rondout Valley of New York State and enjoys a robust studio practice that merges traditional basketry techniques with sculpture. Katie holds a BFA in Printmaking from SUNY New Paltz and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from the NOMAD program at University of Hartford. Her book, Weaving Wild Baskets will be released in April 2026. Photo of Katie Grove in her studio is by Costa Boutsikaris Visit Katie's website at https://www.katiegrovestudios.com

ROUZBEH RASHIDI ON A MACHINERY OF DREAMS

Rouzbeh Rashidi (born in Tehran in 1980) is an Iranian-Irish experimental filmmaker who has been making films since 2000, when he founded the Experimental Film Society (EFS) in Tehran. EFS is an autonomous initiative established expressly to produce cinema through rigorous experimentation. In 2019, he also founded the EFS Film School, a philosophically grounded, artist-run initiative that embodies the idiosyncratic spirit of experimental filmmaking and champions the exploratory nature of personal, intuitive, lyrical, and poetic cinema. https://rouzbehrashidi.com https://experimentalfilmsociety.com

NAHLA TABBAA ON THE ALCHEMY OF FOOD, PLACE, & BEAUTY

Nahla Tabbaa is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores tensions between the urban and the organic, the beautiful and the grotesque. She is drawn to materials that have the agency to self organize, adventuring into immateriality, magic and alchemy. Her methods are intentionally slow-paced, meditative and labour-intensive and permeate strands of her everyday life to heal and harmonise her otherwise fast-paced life. As an act of resistance, she leans into alternative constructs of time and ancient practices as a way to summon magic in the mundane everyday. She sees our present state as a catastrophic dystopian world that can no longer be dismantled with human hands, but rather, she is seeking wisdom in the more-than-human world. Through working with invasive and indigenous plants, plant medicine, hiking, animal care and reading into regional mythology and folklore, her work moves towards a place where she can propose a new system of radical care and the sacred. Tabbaa grew up among and has worked on many gardens throughout her life and career. She sees these gardens as teachers- where their micro-seasons, produce, more-than-humanness, nurture and scarcity have truly shaped how she views the world and how she wants to contribute to it. Her mediums are sculpture, drawing, alchemy, research and the culinary arts. She earned her BFA in Sculpture (Central Saint Martin’s College, 2009) and Curatorial Practice (Bath School of Art and Design, 2012), she completed a culinary and farming diploma at the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Cork, Ireland (2023). She is an alumna of Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship (2021), Campus Art Dubai (2020) and completed artist residencies with Land Art Collective (2025), The Mothership (2025), Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (2025), MMAG (2024) and Alserkal Art Foundation (2023). Her multidisciplinary works and publications have been presented at Wadi Finan Art Gallery (2025) Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (2025), MMAG (2024), Doha Design Biennial (2024), Colomboscope (2024), Alserkal Arts Foundation (2023), 421 (2022), Art Dubai (2021) and the Jameel Arts Centre (2022). She has founded and curated social pedagogical projects including Orraisse (2024-present), Rewilding The Kitchen (2021- present), The Alchemy of Dyeing (2020-2023) and Daftar Asfar (2017-2022). In the culinary world she has led performance dinners, research and explorations at 421, Al Serkal Avenue, Salon Art Dubai, Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation, Colomboscope, Indus Conclave, Livinc, Mujeb Farms, Myocum and Amman Design Week, and has curated Sufra with Frying Pan Adventures and Rewilding the Kitchen with Al Serkal Online. She has published recipes which have featured in Khunfus, EastEast Magazine, The Confused Arab, Deep Fried and Attempting Abla Nazira. Nahla is currently based between Amman and Dubai. https://nahlatabbaa.com

ELIZABETH GLEAVE ON WEAVING CREATIVE IMAGINATIONS

Elizabeth Gleave is a creative strategist, educator and founder ~ creator, co-founder and director of Land Art Agency & Collective. Working across the globe at the intersection of ecology, storytelling and cultural communications to build projects that connect people, place and collective futures. As a marketing and communications educator and a visiting lecturer across UK institutions including Central Saint Martins, Falmouth and Slade School of Fine Art, she brings both creative vision and practical leadership to fruition - translating ideas into structured programmes, collaborations and delivery. Her producing, project management and digital strategy work has supported artists and organisations internationally, with experience spanning D&AD, Reuters, The Times, Photo London, Tate, and White Cube. https://www.elizabethgleavestudios.com Our Membership Programme = www.landartagency.com/members Lessons in Listening 2026 Creative Residency: Online & In Person = www.landartagency.com/listeninghome Talks & Workshops = www.landartagency.com/onlineevents Shine Online = www.landartagency.com/shineonline The Language of the Land = www.landartagency.com/landlanguage The Creative Earth Directory = www.landartagency.com/creativedirectory Or begin at the Land Art Home Page = www.landartagency.com