The Countryside Is Constructed

2026. Needle felted raw sheep’s fleece, polypropylene twine, wooden dowel.

Our perceptions of rural Britain are constructed through a lens of agriculture and national park-ification. This banner is itself a construction, with the ‘natural’ aesthetic carefully curated throughout: from shearing (a process that is superfluous to wild sheep), to smit (colourful marks applied by farmers for identification), to the laborious stabbing of the felting needle.