Dr Patricia Macdonald BSc PhD FRSE FSA(Scot) FRSA HonFRSGS HonFICS
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Patricia Macdonald
Patricia Macdonald is a researcher and academic in environmental history, perception and iconography, with a background in both biology and visual art (Honorary Fellow and former course organiser in Cultural Landscape Studies, Edinburgh University), and an artist-photographer, whose boundary-crossing aerial imagery is exhibited, published, and held in public and private collections internationally.
With Angus Macdonald, she is a partner in the Aerographica consultancy, which specialises in environmental research, record and interpretation, principally by means of aerial photography, and in environment-related art projects; her environmental interests lie towards the wilder, ‘semi-natural’ and ‘cryptic’ end of the spectrum of cultural landscapes. She is responsible for the photographic and art-based aspects of Aerographica’s practice.
Patricia has considerable experience both as a staff member (Assistant Keeper, National Museums of Scotland) and at Board level (Main Board, Scottish Natural Heritage; John Muir Trust; Stills Gallery; President of the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland) in the museum/gallery and natural heritage sectors. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
Patricia Macdonald has authored or co-authored ten books, including Shadow of Heaven (1989); Once in Europa (1999; with John Berger); Airworks (2001); and The Hebrides: An aerial view of a cultural landscape (2010, with Angus Macdonald), and has contributed to numerous publications and conferences. Recent artwork commissions and exhibitions include the recently built Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Glasgow (2014: Drawing the natural world into the hospital), and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta / National Galleries of Scotland (2011-14: ‘Bunkered terrain: Golf landscapes’, part of her ongoing project, The play grounds, on the ecological effects of leisure landscapes). Recent major publications featuring her artworks include The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (Lenman, Ed., 2005/6) and Thames & Hudson’s important recent international survey Landmark: The fields of landscape photography (Ewing, 2014).