Will René Thomson (b. 2000, Cambridge) was raised in rural Cambridgeshire and currently resides in Lincoln. A practicing artist since 2021, Thomson’s work primarily focuses on documentation, conversation, and investigation within an ecological context. These explorations are driven by the concept of “the landscape as an entity” – a consideration that the landscape [in an artistic context] acts like a holobiont. His articulation of this concept aims to encourage an empathetic dialogue between the land, animals, humans, structures, elements, and foliage. The aim of this is to improve empathy for environments in their entirety and promote a mutually beneficial sustainable engagement with the land. 

Thomson’s background working in heritage, and a childhood spent frequenting local museum collections, archives, and churches informs his eclectic methods of curating and displaying his work. His practice also incorporates Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology, folk-memory, and his own belief that objects and entities can retain and ‘emit’ a form spiritual energy. Thomson takes an interdisciplinary, hybridized approach to creating work: incorporating sculpture, sound, printmaking, found objects / ‘ready-mades’, actions, prose, and photography.