Nature Calling – bringing artists into our chalk and limestone landscapes

An open invitation to connect with landscape and nature

Nature Calling is delivered by National Landscape Association and Executive Producers Activate Performing Arts. It’s supported by Arts Council England and Defra. It is the National Landscapes Association’s first national arts commissioning programme, reaching communities throughout England and inviting them to connect more deeply with the natural world through creativity.

Launched this month, the Nature Calling season runs from May to October 2025, offering opportunities the length and breadth of the country to engage with our protected landscapes in unexpected and inspiring ways. From chalk and limestone hills to coastlines, valleys to woodland, this is a nationwide creative invitation to step into nature.

Celebrating calcareous landscapes

Artists have long been drawn to chalk and limestone landscapes—not just for their striking beauty, but for the stories embedded within the ground itself. Shaped over millions of years, these calcareous formations hold the imprint of deep time. They carry with them the echoes of human presence—our ancestors who walked, farmed, worshipped, and shaped these lands over thousands of generations.

Five of the six Nature Calling hub commissions are in chalk and limestone landscapes: the Chilterns, Surrey Hills, Dorset, Mendip Hills and Lincolnshire Wolds. The geology of these places has deeply influenced the artists’ understanding and interpretation of the land. As they got to know the people and communities who live in and around these landscapes, a rich dialogue between people, place, and time emerged—central to what Nature Calling is all about.

Making Space for Nature—and for people

Nature Calling takes its inspiration from Professor Sir John Lawton’s pivotal Making Space for Nature report—but with a powerful shift: applying its principles to people as well as wildlife. In this way, Nature Calling provides the “buffer zones and stepping stones” for human connection, bringing National Landscapes into urban centres and inviting people to then venture further into the countryside. Through this journey, people begin to grow their own roots into the landscape, forming emotional bonds that last beyond the artwork itself. As explored by Edel McGuirk, putting people at the heart of nature recovery creates a virtuous circle—fostering greater wellbeing and delivering nature-rich chalk and limestone landscapes that benefit all of us.

Nature Calling and Big Chalk are closely linked initiatives. Both are hosted by the National Landscapes Association and share a common mission: to spark a mass movement of people, and organisations and communities, inspired by and connected to landscape and nature.

The two teams regularly share updates and explore opportunities to collaborate. With so many of the Nature Calling hubs located within the Big Chalk area, there is natural alignment. We hope many Big Chalk partners will engage with and experience the remarkable artworks, installations, and community events emerging from the Nature Calling season.

How will it work?

Six National Landscapes are acting as creative hubs, working with world-class artists, local producers and community groups to co-create high-quality, landscape-inspired artworks. Twenty-one other National Landscapes and two National Parks are participating as spokes, developing smaller-scale community arts projects.

The programme began in January 2025 with the release of a powerful series of poems, a rap and spoken word pieces written by artists immersed in the hub landscapes.

Each writer spent time getting to know their National Landscape—its geology, people, and the teams working to protect it:

• In the Chilterns, poet Lee Nelson crafted a striking series of nine poems inspired by the chalk hills surrounding Luton.
• In Dorset, Louisa Adjoa-Parker penned This Patch of Land, a reflective piece informed by conversations with farmers and locals.
• In the Forest of Bowland, rapper OneDa created Connections, a spoken word piece exploring peace, space and belonging, while also leading workshops with young people in urban Nelson.
• In the Lincolnshire Wolds, author Ayesha Chouglay explored an ancestral connection to the land, previously unresearched by her own family.
• In the Surrey Hills, Still Shadey wrote Nature’s Anthem: A Journey Through the Hills, drawing on his visit with young people from his mentoring group Ment4.

What’s next?

From now through to the end of October, the full Nature Calling season unfolds. New commissions will be revealed in each of the six hub locations, with further projects launching in the Yorkshire Dales and New Forest National Parks and across the 21 other National Landscapes taking part.

These creative responses offer an extraordinary opportunity to experience the landscapes we cherish in fresh, meaningful ways. Whether you're discovering the hidden rhythms of the Mendip Hills through sound, walking among stories carved in chalk in the Chilterns, or watching a giant collaborative artwork take shape in Dorset—this is your invitation to be part of something powerful and shared.

Together, we’re putting creativity and community at the heart of landscape and nature's recovery.

To follow Nature Calling’s projects throughout May – October go to www.naturecalling.org.uk or Insta. #NatureCalling25

Kerenza McClarnan - Arts Development and Programme Manager at National Landscapes Association