Bio

My name is Paul Knights. For more than thirty years I have been engaged with the landscapes of Britain in many different ways: through conservation work, farming and rural studies, academic research and teaching, environmental education, writing, local history and public engagement. My freelance practice now brings these strands together through writing and photography, collaborations with artists and cultural organisations, guided walks, talks, and environmental education programmes. A full list of projects, talks, collaborations and publications can be found on the Practice page.

I write about and photograph the Pennine landscape where I live, in West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley. Over the past eight years I have published more than 140 pieces and thousands of photographs on this website, exploring the intertwined histories of land, wildlife and people in my valley. My writing surveys the history and ecology of its woods, meadows and moors, chronicling their changes through the seasons, and bearing witness to the work of the people whose lives remain closely tied to the land. You can read about the different strands on the Writing Introduction page, and see a selection of my photographs here.

I collaborate with artists and community arts organisations on projects concerned with place, landscape and nature. My role is often to help ground creative work in the particularities of the local landscape – its history, ecology and cultural meanings. I have worked with sound artists, poets, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, writers and theatre companies, helping to design and deliver projects that deepen public engagement with the places where they live.

I also lead guided walks and give talks exploring landscape history and environmental philosophy. My ‘walking inquiries’ – what I term Philosophy on Foot – invite participants not only to uncover the hidden histories of places but also to reflect on the meanings landscapes hold for different people. I have led walks for organisations including South Pennines Park, Hebden Bridge Arts, Pennine Heritage, Northern Broadsides, U3A, Hebden Royd Town Council and Wainsgate Chapel.

Alongside this work I help design and facilitate environmental education programmes. I have worked with Hebden Royd Town Council, Sand In Your Eye and Eureka! The National Children’s Museum on climate engagement events, and have supported schools in achieving Eco-Schools awards. I am also a qualified Specialist Philosophy Teacher with The Philosophy Foundation, delivering philosophy programmes to pupils in disadvantaged schools.

My understanding of the landscape is continually deepened through practical involvement with many organisations and initiatives. I volunteer with groups including Slow the Flow, Treesponsibility, Forus Tree, High Hirst Woodmeadow, National Trust, Calder Rivers Trust, Calderdale Bird Conservation Group, BEAT Community Orchard, Hebden Bridge Walkers Action and the British Trust for Ornithology. More broadly, I remain in constant conversation with the wide community of people whose lives intersect with the land — farmers, ecologists, historians, artists, foresters, fell runners and many others — building relationships with many hundreds of individuals and over eighty organisations connected with the local landscape.

Before establishing my current freelance practice I spent seventeen years in academic philosophy, spending the last eleven of them researching and teaching in the Philosophy Department at the University of Manchester, where I was latterly a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow. My work throughout focused on philosophical questions concerning the human relationship to nature, often as part of large interdisciplinary teams addressing environmental policy questions. I presented to audiences ranging from policy makers and conservation practitioners to students and the wider public, and designed and delivered the university’s first undergraduate module in environmental ethics.

Earlier in my life, for fifteen years, I worked for the ecological restoration charity Trees for Life in the Scottish Highlands, leading groups of volunteers on residential conservation projects in remote landscapes. Alongside this I completed a rural studies diploma at agricultural college and worked on a variety of farms, from intensive arable and sheep farms to fruit farms and organic smallholdings.

All of these experiences inform my present work. My practice is shaped by philosophy’s task not to provide simple answers but to reveal complexity: to challenge entrenched assumptions about what land is for, to illuminate the many meanings landscapes and wildlife hold for different people, and to deepen appreciation of the values at stake in decisions about the places we inhabit.

I grew up in the arable landscapes of Essex and completed my rural studies diploma at agricultural college in Suffolk. I later spent eight years living in Edinburgh while working extensively in the Scottish Highlands. My strongest connection, however, has always been with the Pennines. When I was eleven my father took me camping in the Yorkshire Dales, and it was there that I first fell in love with this landscape. For the past seventeen years I have lived in Hebden Bridge in the Upper Calder Valley of West Yorkshire, where my work is rooted in the landscapes of the South Pennines.

If you are interested in collaborating, organising a walk or talk, or developing a project connected with landscape and place, please feel free to get in touch at pauljamesknights@gmail.com.