Workshops

Engage with nature through art

Looking closely at the rock formations of the island and through the documentation of these using observational drawing, charcoal/pastel rubbings and creative writing, people are invited to connect with nature by allowing free associations to happen as well as opening up the creative dialogue between nature and humans.

The art-science workshops ‘Re-Imagining Hilbre’ which took part in April 2025, involved a tactile, verbal, intuitive and imaginative approach to the understanding of the geomorphology of Hilbre Island. At the end of the workshops we had a space for open discussion and the contribution to the deep mapping of Hilbre (read more about deep mapping at the bottom of this page). The closing discussion facilitated knowledge exchange (based on people’s experiences through creative engagement) and the sharing of ideas about what it means to connect to the landscape.

If you couldn’t attend the workshops…

And if you have the opportunity to visit Hilbre, and wish to contribute to its creative legacy of interconnectedness, please submit your drawing/sketch to info@lucianahermida.co.uk

Feedback from attendees



‘I found the activity very freeing, doing the imprints rather than trying to recreate something recognisable. It was lovely for the soul just to focus on rock and what came out from that. Connecting with something so ancient’.

‘Finding a suitable location to do the rock rubbings really forced me to focus and look closely, and see how things relate to each other. It’s nice to take the time to do this’.

‘I gained a heightened awareness of the islands as part of the whole ecology, with the life forms and natural features all interlinked and acting on each other’.

‘I have realised the power of artistic approaches to engage with nature conservation in deeper and more meaningful ways’.

The creative contributions from the workshops were added to the SSHI book, a book that celebrates Hilbre as a Site of Special Human Interconnectedness. The contributions to this book are based on the creative expressions product of the experience of Hilbre Island, either of the landscape or of any particular natural elements present in it. The SSHI Legacy Book of Hilbre, highlights the importance of human participation in the recording of nature and the fact that humans are part of it and not outside nature.

Some snapshots of the workshops

  • Rock rubbings

  • Observing the intricacies of the geomorphology

  • Recording the geomorphology during the event for Being Human Festival 2024

  • Recordings from attendees to the workshops

  • Group discussion at the end of workshop for Being Human Festival 2024

  • Creating collages with the gathered impressions from the islands

The workshops and contributions to the SSHI
(Site of Special Human Interconnectedness) status
are ways of deep mapping Hilbre Island.

What is deep mapping?

Deep mapping is an experimental way of recording and making visible what is usually overlooked within a landscape. Deep maps are not maps in a traditional cartographic sense but a way of connecting disparate thoughts/elements/ways of thinking through the use of different materials by both amateurs and professionals – the level of expertise in one particular area is irrelevant. Deep maps are focused on the land and the landscape; on the accountable layering of stories. These stories can be shaped by one person or many. There are no set rules.

Deep maps are unstable, fragile and temporary. They are a conversation and not a statement.

The act of deep mapping embraces the fragility of the landscape, allowing people to become unstable in the security of combined focus when the activity is performed as a group.

Deep mapping is described by Mike Pearson and Michael Shanks as attempting to “record and represent the grain and patina of place through juxtapositions and interpenetrations of the historical and the contemporary, the political and the poetic, the discursive and the sensual.” 

When observed through a spatial lens, landscape becomes a limitless container of knowledge; a site where material and immaterial remnants converge and coexist.