Chaotic - Imperfect - Beauty

2024-2025

“You can only care for what you love — and you can only love what you have experienced”
By Steven Bouma-Prediger

Centuries of deforestation, agricultural expansion, and development have fragmented the UK’s temperate rainforest into small, isolated patches, weakening its biodiversity and resilience. Yet, alarmingly, many people are unaware these rare rainforests even exist, even when they’re right on their doorstep. This lack of awareness leaves these vital ecosystems without the public advocacy and protection they so urgently need.

While man-made plantation forests have their place, they are often cold, sterile, and eerily empty, with little biodiversity to support life. In stark contrast, temperate rainforests are alive, charming in their imperfection, bursting with chaotic beauty, and teeming with life at every turn. Stepping into a temperate rainforest is to feel a deep sense of connection to the natural world.

This project aims to draw powerful visual comparisons between the man-made plantation forests and the temperate rainforest of East Dartmoor, raising awareness of this precious habitat, inspiring people to experience it for themselves, and ultimately encouraging them to value and protect it.