Freedom is an interesting word to use for wild places, as we rarely consider the land as something with agency, with intent, with choice- it just is. It follows a path laid out for it in a greater order of things. But there are two types of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. As a human, I have the freedom to go into the hills, to climb, to walk, to sleep, to find joy, peace, solace, sadness - and acting according to my freedom, wild places are a backdrop for my choices and my actions. But the freedom from hurt, from persecution, from displacement - these are all freedoms afforded to me according to conventions and laws, and should they be infringed upon, I can speak up and challenge it. Not so for wild places, which by all accounts should also receive the same freedom from which I do. When I avoid a muddy hollow in a path and erode the peat beside it, when I scratch my crampon over exposed rock, when I smear on a 1000-year-old lichen with my rock shoes, removing some; who speaks up?

Freedom for

 wild places is 

freedom from

 destruction and degradation. When our freedoms to, negate those freedoms from, there are no freedoms to be found at all. 

Lizzie is a self-taught painter and comic maker based in Inverness. She likes to be out and about, and draws from experiences had in natural spaces, with like-minded folk. Solastalgia was a piece provoked by a solo trip to Glen Feshie, not long after moving to the highlands. Having not grown up locally, and not being familiar with the twists and turns of the landscape's history, she had always held Scotland as a perfect vision of all that is natural and wild. Seeing an alternative ancient history growing in the old forest of Feshie, she started down a path of learning which undid much of her preconceived ideas about landscape, wilderness and culpability. Her work documents this journey of understanding.