My Life As A Dog

Whether perched up a tree like a hawk, crawling through forest shrubbery with a dead deer strapped to his back, or galloping like a stoat on special stoat stillts, performance artist Marcus Coates takes his relationship with nature very seriously indeed. Through his work as artist in residence at Griezedale Forest, Coates has tried to close the gap between nature and man, whilist emphasing the pathetic romantism and futillity of such attempts. "It's humurous and horrific," he enthuses of a project that at one point saw him burried in soil whilst emitting a series of call from indigenous British mammals ranging from grey seal to red squirrel. 
Pictured here in Griezdale B&B, it may look like Coates has just engaged in some exotic role play, but he is in fact demonstrating the emptiness of holiday forays into the unknowable wildness.