Hi there followers of Unseen. I am excited to share an upcoming group show down in Penzance at Toner Gallery.

Toner presents Encounter: A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION ON OUR TOPOGRAPHIC PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Encounter brings together a group of contemporary photographers working in the UK, whose practices engage with the landscape as both a geological record and a living, contested terrain. Through images of rock formations, eroded coastlines, quarries, riverbeds, and shifting hillsides, the works consider land as an archive of deep time, one that vastly exceeds the scale of human history.

Looking to the past as a means of understanding the present, the exhibition reflects on the legacy of the New Topographics movement and its continued relevance today. The photographers draw upon this historical mode of seeing, characterised by clarity, restraint, and an unsentimental gaze, while reworking it in response to contemporary conditions. In this sense, the work operates between old and new topographics: acknowledging earlier photographic approaches to the altered landscape, while extending them to address current ecological, social, and temporal concerns.

The exhibition opens at TONER on the 1st of May and is open to all.

Pause

I have decided to pause my substack subscriber option for a while. After a year of uploading a monthly series of photographs and offering an insight into the places I wander, I have decided to take a beat. I think it’s the whole idea of uploading that I’m struggling with. That and big tech algorithms, screen overload, ai and harvesting, it’s got me realising what I really love doing is making physical things offline.

The whole process of walking in potent places, tapping into the atmosphere, following an instinctive pathway and taking photographs in an intuitive, automatic way is the essence of this project. Slowly putting together a series of images and adding some words is a really joyous process. Designing and then making a physical book leaves me feeling excited and satisfied in a way that uploading and seeing the work on a screen doesn’t. So, I’m going to focus on making and doing irl.

I also have a big writing project I am working on and, although a pretty accomplished plate spinner, I feel like creating a substack each month is a plate I could possibly put down.

Unseen was always supposed to be a very relaxed exploration of land and mind; no pressure, drifting slowly and making when inspiration arises. I will still share a walk or two here on substack for everyone to see (kicked down the paywall), and share latest news and recommendations so, I hope you will continue to follow along.

New website

I have a new website made with a Brighton company Create.net … feels good working with a web provider that is small and local rather than a big, faceless, American tech company.

https://www.rachelpoulton.com

Finally

I am excitedly anticipating a new Boards of Canada release on Warp at the end of next month. Quite often the soundtrack to my unseen making and doing, BoC haven’t released new music for ages so, Inferno is very welcome.

PS

… that time Boards of Canada reposted my watery film on instagram ; )