Alex Murdin

Inclusive Path was a project proposed as part of an open competition for work to be created as part of the FRED at festival in Cumbria. The project took as its starting point the tension between the conservational remit of contemporary land management authorities and the economic driver of tourism, characteristic of the Lake District and other rural areas of the UK. This was exemplified in the rhetoric of the organisation Fix the Fells, a project funded by a consortia including the Lake District National Park, the National Trust and Natural England, in order to repair paths created by “over 12 million visitors each year enjoying the beauty of the fells… the sheer number of visitors leaves a mark on the landscape.” Inclusive Path therefore proposed a solution to this problem with its implicit criticism of walkers. The form of the project was a series of boards showing “self portraits” with holes cut where the faces should be. There were 249 direct participants in the Inclusive Path project who demonstrated a range of responses in their use of the photo panels.