Exeter City Council’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) has acquired photographic artworks by four different artists featured in the ground-breaking exhibition Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape.

Five images have been acquired from Robert Darch’s Ten Tors series, which comprises photographs depicting South Dartmoor College students training for the Ten Tors Walk. The photographs explore young people’s response to the moor, capturing moments of joy, exhaustion, and resilience, as well as pushing the technical boundaries of photography in a storm.

Darch said: ‘I am honoured that RAMM is acquiring five images from my Ten Tors series for their permanent collection.

The work documents young people training on Dartmoor for the Ten Tors and their connection to this special landscape, which RAMM so sensitively represented in their exhibition, ‘Dartmoor: A Radical Landscape’.

Four images from Fern Leigh Albert’s photographic series Wild Campers have also been acquired. The series documents the wild camping campaign on Dartmoor.

Leigh Albert uses photography as a form of activism to raise awareness of the campaign, which has reignited the land rights movement within the UK and helped to win a high court case.

Leigh Albert said: “I am delighted that RAMM has acquired my work, which documents a key moment for land rights within the UK.”

RAMM has also acquired three images from Nicholas J. R. White’s photographic series The Militarisation of Dartmoor, which identifies militarisation as part of Dartmoor's cultural heritage whilst also acknowledging the damage caused to the local environment.

His work considers humanity's relationship with the land, dealing with themes of nature restoration, temporality and dwelling.

White said: ‘I am thrilled that RAMM has acquired my work documenting Dartmoor National Park's long and complex relationship with the military, which has existed for thousands of years long before the area’s official designation as a National Park in 1951. The work was made during my time living on Dartmoor, and studying at Arts University Plymouth, and it’s an honour that it now sits in the permanent collection at RAMM in Exeter.’

Finally, RAMM has acquired Marie Yates’ Field Working Paper 1, which documents walks on and around Dartmoor in the early 1970s, when she made ephemeral sculptures, film and sound recordings and written observations. The work explores ideas of context and site that were central to developments in conceptual art at the time, highlighting the landscape as a site of living memory. 

Yates said: ‘I am delighted that RAMM is acquiring my work, which attempts to question the uses of landscape in art and the media and the covering over and obliteration of the historical remnants of centuries of human struggle.’ 

These acquisitions were donated by the artists. Bob Foale, Exeter City Council Lead for Arts, Culture & Tourism, said, ‘We are very grateful for these donations, which will enable us to continue to tell a rounded and relevant story of Devon. 

By entering RAMM’s collection, future generations will have the opportunity to appreciate great art and understand their place in the world.

The acquisitions also meet the museum’s aims for Contemporary Art collecting, which includes photographers who have contributed to the visual narrative of the south west.