- Not a habit or a routine activity;
- It has intent, awareness, meaning;
- A symbol, a ceremony;
- A repeated action, it exists throughout a period of time;
- It involves patience, it isn’t rushed;
- Represent a set of values;
- It has a structure, formed by established steps
 

 


We are a group of four interdisciplinary artists currently completing our master’s degrees at the RCA.

United by an interest in how rituals can help navigate eco-anxiety amid climate uncertainty, we explore ways to reconnect with nature and foster healing and agency. Our research consists of performing a series of experimental rituals that draw on various cultural, artistic, and historical practices, as well as gathering resources—such as artworks and writings—that explore these ideas.

Over several weeks, we gathered in Battersea Park—an urban green space near our studios—to test and develop group rituals. Our practices primarily focus on land art, creating ephemeral offerings to nature using only materials found in the space, without causing harm or introducing foreign elements. These acts of reciprocity serve as gestures of care and connection with the natural world. While land-based rituals form the core of our explorations, we have also experimented with other forms of ritual practice to understand their potential in fostering a deeper relationship with the environment.

By sharing our experiences, research, and a how-to guide, we invite others to construct their own rituals as a way of processing environmental grief, deepening their relationship with nature, and reclaiming a sense of agency in uncertain times.

As society moves away from communal, structured rituals and many feel disconnected from those offered by organized religion, creating our own intentional practices can be a powerful way to reengage with the world. In the face of climate change, such rituals can help individuals and communities process overwhelming environmental shifts while fostering solidarity, resilience, and a sense of agency.

Byung-Chul Han (2020) describes the power of rituals: 

"We can define rituals as symbolic techniques of making oneself at home in the world. They transform being-in-the-world into being-at-home. They turn the world into a reliable place. They are to time what a home is to space: they render time habitable. They even make it accessible, like a house. They structure time, furnish it.”

In times of crisis, rituals—whether personal or collective—offer meaning and structure, making the intangible more accessible and grounding us in the present.

Honoring the earth through ritual can deepen our connection to nature. Practices such as offerings, prayers, or seasonal ceremonies can be adapted to renew our commitment to sustainability, healing, and ecological balance. Similarly, rituals of mourning or remembrance can help process the grief of losing species, ecosystems, and communities.

Here is a short list of suggestions of where to get ideas and inspiration when thinking about ritual, land art reconnection with the nature:

Artists:
- Alan Sonfist
- Ana Mendieta
- Andy Goldsworthy
- David Nash
- Juan Fernando Herrán
- Richard Long
- Robert Smithson

Texts:

- Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity, Adam B. Seligman
- The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present, Byung-Chul Han
- The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework, Nicholas M. Hobson, Juliana Schroeder, Jane L. Risen, Dimitris Xygalatas, and Michael Inzlicht
- Walking Methodologies in a More-than-Human World, WalkingLab, Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman