Energy Goast is a nature awareness brand set up by Vaseem Bhatti and Mishka Henner. The project questions the commodification of ‘nature’ in an age of synthetic landscapes.

Fascinated with the nuclear, military and energy infrastructures that stretch across the West Coast, the agency is a shadow of the Energy Coast Masterplan. The masterplan was produced by a regional consortium that sought to attract further energy and infrastructure investment to the Cumbrian economy. Like all outdoors brands worth their salt, one key site on which Energy Goast unravels is Instagram, with a durational campaign that picks apart the visual imagery of nature commodification.

Adverts for the ‘Great Outdoors’ (such as those that drive the neighbouring Lake District’s economy) routinely feature stylised imagery and allusions to the wilderness, but these ‘natural’ spaces are in fact somewhat artificially constructed through conservation laws and initiatives. Featuring insta-stylised imagery overlaid with graphics inspired by military optical equipment, Energy Goast builds from a steady churn of #outdoors content into something more critical, capable of grappling with the foreboding landscape of the Energy Coast and the myth-making that takes place around it.