What, another guidebook to the Lake District, attracting yet more visitors to this most visited landscape?!

Well, yes…but Scree isn’t any old guidebook. Instead of offering scenic walks to honeypot locations, or the latest word in rugged peak-bagging adventures, the routes in Scree are artistic provocations - experiments which playfully ask questions aimed at entirely rethinking our relationship with the Lake District, through writing & art, and walking, running or wheeling. And the environmental topics explored by Scree are certain to dominate debate in the coming months and years…

In seeking solace from the landscape, might we end up inscribing our own griefs and traumas upon it?

Nature, really? Whose landscape is this anyway (& who gets to say)?

Peak-bagging, fellrunning record-breaking: why the need to conquer the fells?

How can we best bring our creative energies to the fells, rather than extracting energy from them?

Scree doesn’t provide all the answers – that’s where you come in, whether by independently following the routes, creating and submitting new writing or art, attending a Scree-lab (writing & hiking course), visiting the Scree exhibition at Wordsworth House, or following route adaptations and virtual exercises to complete the experiments from home. Yet it does set out from a belief that our relationship with landscapes is fundamentally creative, making writing and art the ideal ways to explore.

Scree is the work of Cumbria-based writer, artist, and former professional environmental campaigner and academic Lucy Burnett, but the key participant is you. No matter your artistic experience; your age, background, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity; or your level of fitness or ability. You will find something to spark your imagination, and the opportunity to submit your work for publication here.

Scree is a work-in-progress, in-development over the course of 2021 / 2022 with Arts Council and Lake District National Park Authority funding. Its approach reflects a belief that how we do things is as important as what is done, and aims to involve as many people as possible in submitting work, ideas and feedback. If you are a published writer / established artist and would like to propose a route experiment of your own, or an organisation who would like to partner Scree, please do also get in touch.

To enable access for all, Scree is offered free of charge. To support the project, or to register your enjoyment of the routes and associated artwork, you may donate here. All funds raised will be re-injected into the project. All the writing and photography collected here is copyrighted to the author, and not to be reproduced elsewhere. If you would like to purchase some artwork, you can find out how to do so here.