Listening to the earth

Listening to the earth is a touring exhibition in partnership with Sheffield Museums and Mostyn and supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. It is curated by Hammad Nasar – curator, writer, and Director of Programmes and Content at Ibraaz London. It brings together ten international artists who engage with the earth as both subject and material. The earth is a site of extraction, but also a source of nourishment, healing and connection. In multiple cultures, life begins from earth and it is to the earth that our mortal remains return. We understand who we were by searching under the earth for traces of the past. But the earth also carries insights into where we are now and enables us to imagine where we might be going.

Our earliest drawings, discovered in caves around the globe, were created using earth-based pigments directly on the earth’s surface. This exhibition considers these pre-linguistic acts of representation as a form of attentive listening, prompting the question: What might we learn if we truly listen to the earth with all our senses?

The artists in Listening to the earth explore this concept through immersive, action-oriented approaches. They walk on, handle, and engage with the earth, creating artworks that reference specific locations, from the Saudi desert and the rural landscapes of the Harappan civilization to South London’s lost rivers, from the earliest cave drawings in Derbyshire and ancient burial sites in South Yorkshire, to North Wales’ slate mountains and Cornwall’s abandoned mines. Utilising diverse methods and materials, including dust, foraged natural pigments, ash, slate, photography and field recordings, these artists expand the language of drawing.

Featured Artists and Works

Tanoa Sasraku (b. 1995, Plymouth; lives in Glasgow) interrogates death and the human body through crude oil extraction and garment construction. Her new work includes custom keychains filled with crude oil, housed in transformed corporate bankers’ boxes, juxtaposed with her ‘Terratypes’ series made from earth pigments foraged from Ghana and Cornwall.

Ro Robertson (b. 1984, Sunderland; lives in West Cornwall) focuses on the interconnection between body and landscape, creating a ritual monument that aligns with the summer solstice at a site of Women’s Land in West Cornwall, initiated in 1996.

Emii Alrai (b. 1993; lives in the UK) presents a new series of bitumen and ink drawings resembling ancient vessels, exploring themes of heritage and colonial legacies.

David Alesworth (b. 1957; lives in Bristol) examines the relationship between land and colonial-era plant movements, showcasing ephemeral land drawings made with the help of a bulldozer and a stick at a cement plant in Pakistan.

Mohammad Alfaraj (b. 1993; lives in Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia) uses charcoal from burned palm fronds to narrate poetic stories of humanity and nature, celebrating the connection to the earth.

David Nash (b. 1945; lives in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales) presents works shaped directly from nature, including Boot Hill (1986), a drawing that reflects on a WWII military dump site.

Ali Kazim (b. 1979; lives in Lahore, Pakistan) offers Tteela (Ruins) (2025), a four-panel work that imagines his ancestral landscape revealing terracotta sherds from ancient civilizations.

Abigail Reynolds (b. 1975; lives in St Just, Cornwall) records an abandoned quarry using frottage, creating drawings that capture the quarry’s history and ‘singing’ through field recordings.

Anwar Jalal Shemza (1928-1985), a pioneer of seriality in Britain, is represented by his Roots series, featuring imaginary plant forms that intertwine with cursive script.

Mary Lemley (b. 1955; lives in London) explores personal narratives within geological processes, presenting a new iteration of These Fragments We Have Shored Against Our Ruin (1992), which highlights the old Neckinger River.

Listening to the earth is curated by Hammad Nasar who has a sustained interest in drawing practices and has curated and co-curated numerous international exhibitions including Urdu Worlds: Ali Kazim |Zarina (2026); Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now, and Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends (both 2023–24);and British Art Show 9 (2021–22). He was awarded an MBE for services to the arts in 2023.

The exhibition is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Ro Robertson’s commission is supported by Knotenpunkt, an independent, non-profit, artist-centred initiative fostering dialogue, building community and supporting research and creation across disciplines.

A collaboration with University College Anthropocene and Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art will expand themes explored in the exhibition through conversations with artists, academics, writers and curators.

The exhibition is supported by Jhaveri Contemporary and Taimur Hassan Collection.

Further press information & high-res images:

George Bray, [email protected] | Ruth Pilston, [email protected]