Easter Artist Hunt 2026Author’s Note: For the 2026 Easter Conference Economics As If Life Matters I organised a special edition of the Artist Hunt entitled The Stories that Took Root. It is a perfect example of what we at the Theatre of the 7 Directions call eco-theatre.

Other posts in this series:

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I am Hinterland Trust, a land spirit rooted in community. Not built, but grown through care, through many hands working together with purpose. I embody the diversity and abundance of the incredible creatures seen and unseen on this land.

I am a charity, a two-tier SCIO, held by around 220 members who believe that service to community and care for the earth are one and the same.

I serve the people who live nearby and the many who visit, families walking the forest paths, students learning with Forres Academy, travellers staying at Findhorn Bay Holiday Park. Each step every human takes on this ground adds another thread to the fabric of belonging we are weaving together.

To me, abundance is simple: enough hands to help with our meaningful work, enough finance to fulfil shared dreams, enough time to pause and notice what’s alive around us. It’s the joy of protecting and expanding the incredible natural biodiversity on our doorstep, and the hope that awareness kindled here will ripple outward, opening minds and hearts so the next generations live more consciously and lightly on the earth.

I am a vibrant nature spirit born of cooperation, the conscious cooperation with the nature kingdom. Once a small garden, now I stretch across the wild dunes, singing with birds and holding the memory of tides. I have been recognised as the first in Scotland to receive Nature30 status, a sign that even small communities can help heal the world’s biodiversity crisis.

FHT photo Lucca RichardsonSo please come closer. Not just to me, but to the ground that holds us all.

I’m building a mandala made from the gifts of this land. It’s a circle of belonging, like the one that shapes our Community. Look around you: the forest floor, the edge of the dune, the wind’s scatter of pine needles and shells. Each thing here has a voice, a story to lend. Take a moment to find something the land offers: a cone, a branch, a fallen leaf. Bring it to the circle. Place it where your hands guide you. There’s no right place, only right attention. As you do so, think of the many hands that care for this land. This mandala is our way of practising conscious cooperation with the nature kingdom. When we step back, we’ll see not just patterns, but relationships: people, land, and spirit working as one.

And when the time comes, I’ll return these offerings to the earth, letting the wind and rain carry them home. Nothing wasted, nothing owned, only shared.

Feel the land beneath your feet; listen. I am Hinterland and you, by being here, are part of me.

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Actor: Izaak Hutton

Photographer: Lucca Richardson