#681: North Norfolk Landscape and Literature Festival

This has all the makings of a superb weekend. I'm going to attend a few of the events all being well. 

It's been running for a few years now.

The Festival features a whole range of events broadly on the theme of landscape, connected to North Norfolk. This includes art, literature, and field events.

They mostly take place in and around the Norfolk town of Wells next the Sea, including some boat trips on the marshes and a few events outside of the town.

Here's some of the events on Saturday 

There is an exhibition of paintings including some from one of my favourite contemporary artists: Fred Ingrams, who frequently paints in the Fens. I have the catalogue of one of his exhibitions of Fenland paintings which has a great introduction and description of the landscape from Jonathan Meades.

“There’s a real experience behind each of my paintings. They say I have stood in this landscape, been bitten alive by midges, drenched by massive storm clouds. You can’t fake it.”

Fred’s work connects him with the deep history of the landscapes he paints – the strange stories and myths of places that exist on the outside of a world beyond the horizon. 

Spending time in these fragile ecosystems he also sees how threatened they are – by natural processes or well-meant schemes, from crumbling coastlines to drainage to conifer plantations to massive wind farms encroaching into a pristine wilderness.

There are some excellent additional trips running:

• several boat trips through the marshes
• a tour of Holkham Estate including some of the management of the different landscapes that it has 
• exhibitions and poetry