Stephanie Allen
Affiliation: Arts&Heritage
Panel: Re-Enchanted Landscapes
Stephanie is Chief Executive of Arts&Heritage, a national visual arts agency that connects artists, communities, and heritage sites to explore complex histories and imagine more inclusive futures, ensuring both tangible and intangible heritages are valued by generations to come. Arts&Heritage delivers creative commissions, consultancy, and a national network for freelance curators. Stephanie is also Culture Lead for Herefordshire Council. With over 30 years’ experience as a producer, creative director, and project manager, she has led artistled and site-responsive projects for organisations including Artsadmin and the Hayward Gallery, alongside strategic roles at Arts Council England, the Geffrye Museum, the Sidney Nolan Trust, and Creative United.
Rooted in Myth: Re-Enchanting Regeneration explores how artists working with folk narratives and participatory creative practices can animate environmental regeneration projects, strengthening community connection, wellbeing, and ecological stewardship. Using King Herla—Arts Heritage’s recent commission by artist Jamie Fitzpatrick in partnership with Herefordshire Wildlife Trust at Bartonsham Meadows—as a central case study, the paper examines how mythic storytelling can be woven into landscape renewal to enrich both ecological and cultural imaginaries.
In King Herla, the legend of an ancient British king is reinterpreted through a biodegradable, seed-laden sculpture that gradually dissolves into the recovering floodplain. Alongside this, an augmented reality artwork, co-created with local residents, allows participants to shape the narrative’s contemporary relevance. Together, these elements position folklore as a living cultural resource capable of activating environmental engagement, blurring boundaries between legend, place, and ecological process.
The paper argues that artistic interventions of this nature foster embodied, sensory encounters with place, where storytelling becomes a mode of ecological attunement. Community workshops function as spaces for co-production of knowledge and care, supporting emotional connection to both human and nonhuman worlds. By layering communally held ancient stories onto present-day regenerative efforts, artists can cultivate affective and social conditions that encourage environmental responsibility and collective creativity.
This creative placemaking approach aligns with Therapeutic Landscapes’ focus on the interrelations of ritual, folklore, and wellbeing. It demonstrates how participatory art embedded within environmental projects can enhance emotional health, strengthen communal belonging, and expand ecological awareness. The talk will reflect on methodologies, community dynamics, and the therapeutic potential of integrating folk and collective storytelling into collaborative environmental practice, offering insights into how imaginative strategies can support cultural and ecological regeneration and help make the invisible processes of renewal tangible.