Awarded, British Ceramics Biennial 2025 – LOOP : Postcards from the Green Belt

LOOP : Postcards from the Green Belt considers the debate about the use and role of land-based resources.  

As successive governments explore how to expand housing capacity, and drive economic growth, areas of our landscape are under consideration for building and development. Dr Alison Rees walked from Erith on the south bank of the Thames to Purfleet on the opposite bank by completing the 242km London Outer Orbital Path (LOOP), over a period of 6 months. This walk took Alison through Britain’s most substantial green belt – the 5,085 km2 encircling London

Alison’s experience of the green belt is documented in an installation of nearly 300 porcelain postcards, constructed in the round to convey the idea of circularity and perimeter. She uses porcelain to suggest the green belt’s strength and its fragility, and uses form of the postcard to suggest the idea of a correspondence between person and place. She draws upon those ideas of correspondence to tell a personal narrative of thoughts, feelings and emotions experienced whilst walking through an extensive place, the green belt. 

The installation does not argue for or against housing, or economic expansion, in what is a nuanced and complex debate. Rather, the work responds to what is there today. It celebrates the act of walking and slow travel and how layers of activity accumulate over time to form a landscape.