Born and raised in Cumbria, now living and working in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Richards is heavily influenced by the outdoors and her experiences both traversing it and being part of it.

Richards’ art practice is an ongoing journey built from a patchwork of walks. She uses them to explore her personal relationship to places and what external factors impact these relationships. Through walking, she explores space: how geographical spaces and those who travelled them throughout history have changed, place: how we form relationships with spaces, and the importance of moving through them to be able to do so, and belonging: who is allowed to travel and be in them now.

Walking provides her with the rhythm, time, and observation to be able to explore these things, and is the consistent backbone of her practice. Embedded in this is an interest in collective memory intertwining with the exploration of land access, rights of way and the politics of walking.

The works produced and curated post walk are a valuable element of her practice, but none of them could exist without the true work that is the walk itself. Outside of the walks, Richards uses exhibiting spaces to create site-specific installations and works emulating the experience of a walking journey, exploring belonging, power, and access.

By showing a combination of personal response pieces, documentary style pieces, zines, and institutional text styles, she invites us to think through our relationships to spaces and how they are impacted by the power dynamics of ownership and collective memory.

Website: isobelrichards.co.uk
Instagram: @_izzyrichards_
Email: izzyrichardsartist@gmail.com
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