Viewing After Nature at Proposition

After Nature comes to Proposition’s Bethnal Green gallery from CLOSE gallery Somerset, a re-contextualisation of the group exhibition curated by Ben Tufnell, bringing together long-established masters of land and environmental art such as Richard Long and David Nash alongside a younger generation of artists looking to renegotiate humanity’s place in a fragile ecology.

Originally displayed in a rural setting at CLOSE gallery in Somerset, After Nature engaged in a quiet dialogue with its wild surroundings. There, sculptures, earthy pigments, and natural materials echoed the landscape outside. Now transplanted into the heart of London, in one of the world’s most urbanised environments, those same works strike a different — possibly even more urgent — chord.

Some pieces draw on raw natural processes: Long’s dramatic mud works, or sculptures and drawings made with ash, dust or recycled pigments; others imagine new relationships between species and spaces — for example, installations that evoke the perspective of pollinators or experiments in ecological re-awakening. At a moment when climate crisis and biodiversity loss are no longer abstract concerns but daily reality, After Nature becomes a gesture of resistance and reflection. Through its earthy materials and delicate forms, the exhibition speaks to what has been lost — but also points toward what might still be reclaimed.