Sophie Nowakowska

​Rut 1(self-portrait) is from a body of work that was made in response to the Knepp rewilding site in Sussex. Walking there, and photographing the landscape, I began to ask what the wild can be; in ecology, in art and in my work. How does it exist within limitations, in beleaguered spaces? The studio became my rewilding site; a safe space that nurtures experimentation and playfulness. Definitions of the wild describe our lack of control over it. Wild is the un-discovered land, the un-cultivated plant, the un-tamed animal, so it becomes anything that is not human, but I resist this being at odds with the wild. My own wildness is in the body and the imagination, it is close by; within, not without.