RICHARD Skelton and Autumn Richardson operate at the crossover of art, music and literature.

They class their work as "informed" rather than "inspired" by landscape. Not impressionistic, but the innovative result of extensive research into specific places, topographies, ecologies and histories.

Pages from their book-works frequently spill with word-lists drawn from varied sources: pollen diagrams, dialect glossaries, cartographic records, archaeological tracts - but their re-purposing of this material as art is deeply humane, aimed at drawing the attention towards the lost, forgotten or overlooked; it celebrates the poetry and beauty that such attention can reveal, and gently urges each of us towards a more intimate relationship with our natural surroundings.

In late 2008, en route to Scotland, the couple took a detour along some of the Lake District’s lonelier roads; through the back country between the Irish Sea and the high peaks of Great Gable and Scafell. A region of crags and scars, heather and bracken, grassland and bogs, scattered with remnants of prehistoric settlements. Apparently, it made a massive impression on them, and they later moved to live in the area, to start what would become several years’ work.

Richard and Autumn’s Memorious Earth: A Longitudinal Study exhibition runs at Abbot Hall Art Gallery and Blackwell, The Arts and Crafts House at Bowness, until March 14.

It gathers together this Cumbrian material for the first time, comprising music, film, books, pamphlets, prints, artefacts and assemblages that engage with the natural history of this landscape, from the post-glacial wasteland to the present day.

Additionally, for the past year Richard has been granted access to the collection of Lakeland Arts' Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, continuing his decade-long fascination with archive material, as documented in such publications as Landings, Moor Glisk and Limnology. One of the rooms at Abbot Hall is annexed as a Museum of Ferae Naturae, presenting a series of artefacts from the MOLLI collection in the light of ‘new findings’ by the 'Notional Research Group for Cultural Artefacts.' The museum will explore the customary persecution and exploitation of animal life in Cumbria, offering alternate historic, mythic and folkloric contexts for these artefacts which imply different attitudes towards the natural world.

Also running at Abbot Hall until March 14, is the Boyle Family: Contemporary Archaeology.

For further information telephone 01539-722464.