Outlooks Of The English Countryside

The English countryside is often pictured as timeless, peaceful and white—a landscape emptied of colonial histories, migration and difference. Yet who is invited to enter this picture, walk its paths and claim its beauty?

For many Black and People of Colour, the countryside remains difficult to reach. Limited time, income and transport, alongside racism and the feeling of being “out of place,” deny many the benefits of nature.

Outlooks on the English Countryside uses photography to question this inherited image. “Outlook” means both a way of seeing and the place from which we look: a viewpoint, a position and, sometimes, a privilege. Where most land is privately owned, even the freedom to roam is unevenly distributed. As many collective members are also LGBTQIA+, we recognise how race, class, sexuality and migration intersect in rural space, where isolation and invisibility can persist.

Inspired by Black Girls Hike, Flock Together and Queer Out Here, we acknowledge the barriers we encounter and the privilege enabling our participation. Beneath the imperfect term BPOC, we do not share one identity, history or photographic language. What unites us is a belief that photography can unsettle familiar landscapes. By walking, looking and making images together, we place different bodies, memories and histories within the frame—questioning who belongs, who is seen and what Englishness might become.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Pierre-Yves Monnerville (1977–2026), a gifted photographer and cherished member of the Sussex BPOC Photography Collective.