Landscape as a storytelling tool
The physical environment around us houses stories of who we are, where we come from and where we are headed. As a nation building tool, landscape goes beyond a terrain’s materiality and into metaphorical representations of cultural identity and history. Landscape is created through writing - folk stories, poems, historical documents, legal frameworks - and through visual forms - paintings, maps, etc. Through such mediated representations, the terrain becomes a tool to define and shape national and regional identities. This text examines the ways in which we transform raw nature into meaning through intervention and interpretation.
I define the terrain as physical formations of natural elements such as rock, soil, water, flora and fauna. The landscape, on the other hand, is a product of human values, histories, and ideologies being superimposed on the terrain and it’s tangible elements. In other words, a landscape consists of the terrain and layers of meaning.
I define the terrain as physical formations of natural elements such as rock, soil, water, flora and fauna. The landscape, on the other hand, is a product of human values, histories, and ideologies being superimposed on the terrain and it’s tangible elements. In other words, a landscape consists of the terrain and layers of meaning.
“Landscape is the result of a collective transformation of nature. It is the cultural translation of a society on a particular portion of nature, and this translation is not only material, but also spiritual, ideological and symbolic.
In this sense, landscape acts as a centre of meaning and symbolism…”
Landscape and national identity in Catalonia by Joan Nogue and Joan Vicente
In this sense, landscape acts as a centre of meaning and symbolism…”
Landscape and national identity in Catalonia by Joan Nogue and Joan Vicente
As an exercise, let’s look at the differences between a rock and the rock that makes Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. A rock is a “mute and blind” element of the terrain. The rock that forms the Bamiyan Valley is a collection of cultural, spiritual, and ideological symbols - in other words, a landscape. Bamiyan Valley formed as a hotspot on the Silk Road, between the West with the East, telling us of commerce, migration, cultural exchange and conquest. The cultivated lands and the caves tell us of human lives and struggles; the sacred sites and Buddha monuments tells us of religion. This is not a purely historical landscape either - in 2001 the Taliban ordered the Buddha monuments to be destroyed with the aim of stopping future generations from worshipping them. Today, the 50m tall empty crevices in the rock tell us about the importance we place on controlling narratives and landscapes. However, a rock can tell stories of war, resistance, and suffering on it’s own through the traces it carries; and a rock’s stories do not always align with the stories of power.
“Humans encode physical landscapes with abstract conceptualisations of identity, experience, time, and place. Yet rather than existing as open stores of cultural data for anyone to access, landscapes are inevitably shaped by social structures that dictate who has power to oversee and control them.”
Landscape and Memory by Ben Bridges
Landscape and Memory by Ben Bridges
Landscapes are spaces of contested meaning. Through writing, visualising and altering, we communicate narratives which define the past and the future, and superimpose our perceptions and understandings of the world around us. Finnish geographer Jouni Häkli framed this as a discursive landscape – “National landscape is not only read off from nature and culture, it is also written therein.” And so, when we look at a landscape, we can ask: which stories are being told? which mediums are being used to tell it? and does the terrain tell narratives of it’s own?
Storytelling & mythology
Arguably the basis of all mediation is storytelling, which infiltrates all other kinds of mediation by serving the same purpose – uniting people with common narratives and beliefs. Storytelling can: give a terrain spiritual importance; give a terrain agency and personhood; explain natural formation and cultural identities; justify territories and nations through “natural borders.”
01 The Sleeping Giant, Ojibwe Myth (Canada): using storytelling to explain natural formations and cultural values. According to local legend, the Sleeping Giant formation is the petrified body of a spirit, who was turned to stone after the locals revealed his silver mine to European colonisers. The myth explains the rock formation, but it also tells a tale of loss and the importance of protecting Indigenous land. In the myth, the terrain is alive, it interacts with local people and can be betrayed or killed.
02 Seonghwangrim sacred forests (Korea): using storytelling to give a territory spiritual importance. Korean folk beliefs distinguish certain forests as sacred powers, protecting and guarding surrounding villages. Through narratives of human and land connection, a cultural identity and a territory is justified.
03 Natural borders: using storytelling to justify borders and territories. Rivers and mountain rages are examples of “natural borders” - terrain formations used to draw national territories. Spain and France or Peru and Argentina are some of the natural borders dividing the terrain and justifying nationalities, cultural identities, and monarchies. The narratives told about these borders are usually conflicting with the lived experience of population, where differences are less obvious or dramatic.
Maps and mappings
In the traditional form, maps are a way to highlight or hide certain narratives through graphics and text. Orally shared narratives can represent the same information, making some maps invisible and imagined. Mappings can: highlight or obscure features of a terrain; assert cultural narratives; justify territorial ownership; document change over time; create imagined geographies; and so on.
01 Carte de la Louisiane et du Course du Mississippi (1718) by Guillaume de L’Isle’s: using maps to justify territorial ownership. Guillaume de L’Isle’s map of the North America served as a strategic tool for France to legitimise its territorial claims by depicting the Mississippi River Valley with a level of geographic accuracy rare for the time, lending credibility to French control over the area. The map explicitly labels French forts and Indigenous territories aligned with France, visually reinforcing a narrative of French influence across the Mississippi Basin, minimising British and Spanish presence.
02 Ammassalik, Inuit mappings of the Arctic: using maps to assert cultural narratives. Maps highlight the culture that produces them. Strong examples of this are the Inuit mappings of the Arctic, which depict the water around the land, instead of the land itself. The experiences and priorities of the people who navigate the terrain - being able to hold and touch the map while navigating the waters during storms or in fog, - define what the map looks like. Inuit maps are also known to exist in mental and oral forms, such as songs and stories.
Naming
Another way to convey meaning is to name physical spaces by referring to emotions, events, and values. Adding meaning to a terrain through naming can share knowledge and aid in navigation; embed cultural beliefs and values; keep historical records; etc.
01 Coming home to indigenous place names in Canada by Dr. Margaret Wickens Pearce: using naming to share knowledge and aid in navigation. In her map of Canada, Dr. Pearce uses Indigenous place names alongside their English translations, providing a window into an alternative way of navigating the terrain. Indigenous names describe places of gathering, territorial rights, communities, resources and dangers. For example, Piashtipeu (Where the sea overflows); oskana kâ-asastêki (Where the bones are piled); Apusirivik (Place to learn about snow conditions). The map challenges our traditional understanding of Canada and the division of the land through county borders.
Cultivating
Human interventions in the natural landscape can carry meaning on individual and collective scales - for example planting trees to mark important life events or nurturing community through collective gardens. Cultivated fields in areas of repression keep alternative histories alive through layers of memories (once again, collective and individual) in smells, textures, tastes, and sounds of the landscape. Cultivating land in contested or neglected spaces symbolises the right over the terrain, turning cultivation into an act of independence. In the same way, destruction of cultivated lands imply dominance and control. Through cultivation, the terrain can reinforce cultural identities, create spaces of resistance, restore land, etc.
01 Olive tree plantations in Palestine: using cultivation of the terrain as a symbol of heritage and resilience. The destruction of Palestinian olive tree fields by Israeli forces highlights the terrain as a space where cultivation and its destruction become acts of political significance. Targeting olive groves—symbols of Palestinian heritage, resilience, and attachment to the land—attempts to destroy the physical and cultural connection between Palestinians and their territory.
Commemorating
Historical events can be signified by both unintentionally built elements (ex. natural environments, but also places or buildings representing struggle) and purposefully built elements (ex. sculptures, memorials, planted trees). Many purposefully built elements tell official and institutionalised histories, therefore not always aligning with the lived experiences of the population. Unintentionally built elements are usually more representative of collective memories, mostly traumatic, such as war, oppression, or slavery. Sites of struggle can gain cultural value to the oppressed as a symbol of survival and resilience.
03 Grūto Parkas, Lithuania: curated memorials as repositories of historical narratives. Grūto Parkas is a sculpture park in Lithuania where Soviet-era statues and monuments have been relocated. By placing these statues in a controlled environment rather than destroying them, the park transforms symbols of oppression into tools for critical engagement with the past. This site allows visitors to confront Soviet narratives and acknowledge the traumas of occupation.
02 The Killing Fields, Cambodia: preserved traces in the untouched terrain commemorating historical events. The Killing Fields are sites across Cambodia where mass executions took place during the Khmer Rouge regime, now preserved as memorials to honour victims of the genocide. Rather than relying on built memorials, these fields retain physical traces—fragments of clothes and bones, and mass graves—making the terrain itself a direct witness to history.
02 The Killing Fields, Cambodia: preserved traces in the untouched terrain commemorating historical events. The Killing Fields are sites across Cambodia where mass executions took place during the Khmer Rouge regime, now preserved as memorials to honour victims of the genocide. Rather than relying on built memorials, these fields retain physical traces—fragments of clothes and bones, and mass graves—making the terrain itself a direct witness to history.
Legalising
The terrain can be mediated through less visible interventions, such as legal and economic frameworks, which define its use and importance. Legal documents, historical records, and economic regulations assign ownership, impose boundaries, restrict activities, and determine the land’s economic value.
“Landscapes are produced and constructed by multiple processes, of which some are readily visible (e.g. mining or agriculture) while other equally impactful processes remain more opaque (e.g. high finance or legal frame-works).”
In Search of Nordic Landscape Geography by Tomas Germundsson, Erik Jönsson, and Gunhild Setten
In Search of Nordic Landscape Geography by Tomas Germundsson, Erik Jönsson, and Gunhild Setten
01 England’s “Right to Roam”: shaping public access to the terrain through law making. Starting in the 1400s, England transformed common lands into private property through a series of enclosure movements (later named Enclosure Acts). This process allowed landowners to fence off previously communal lands with stone walls and hedges, restricting what had been shared lands for grazing, foraging, and community gathering. As a result, people had increasingly less access to the countryside, leading to protests and organized mass trespassing ('rambling') in the early 20th century. These acts of civil disobedience resulted in the passing of the "Right to Roam" (Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000)), which grants public access to specific types of open land, including mountains, moors, heaths, and designated walking paths, restoring limited rights of the countryside to the public.