Final Thoughts on Self Negotiate Unit

In writing my learning agreement for this unit I was interested in notions of the displaced English Landscape and the fashion in which forces operating within it may somehow detract from notions of the sublime or traditional values that we place upon our experience of the landscape.

I considered this in three ways, firstly via films, I looked at three films in which the central oddball characters blunder around within the English landscape featuring as a backdrop to their meanderings. Rather than any sense of contemplation and union they manage to obliterate any sense of the emotional or spiritual sublime via their erratic behaviour.

Secondly I considered an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Beach Head on the South Coast Beachy Head recognized for its picturesque and beautiful nature. The ciffs themselves however mask a dark statistic which is that they are used as a popular suicide spot making it the third highest suicide spot in the world.

Finally I considered the effects of invasive species introduced in the C20th as ornamental and decorative species by the Victorians which have subsequently escaped and spread throughout the length and breadth of the country causing immeasurable damage and destruction to the indigenous population of species living nearby.

Very soon into this unit I realised that of these three topics the invasive species was the one that I was more interested in pursuing and as a result the other two areas fell  to the wayside. Although I did not actively pursue the case studies that I mentioned within my learning agreement these topics did crop up within my research and as part of my working practice.

The film I made of the contractor clearing a site of special scientific interest of Himalayan Balsam tied in with idea of the English Landscape as a backdrop to other potentially sinister activities occurring within it. The hybrid collages that I created from found imagery of National Parks and areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty juxtaposed with imagery of invasive species were also inspired by the fact that darker forces may be present within these beautifully, manicured and managed landscapes.

I feel that the experimentation that I have carried out within this unit has been particularly beneficial to my practice and much of the research and work that I have produced will carry forward into my final year. The themes and ideas that I am interested in elaborating on include ideas around National Parks which exist as an extension of how we perceive the Natural unadulterated landscape should look like. In reality these spaces are carefully managed and manicured in order to conform to this stereotype. The same may be true of public green places which have been constructed around ideas of C18th English landscaping. The Botanical Garden ties in with ideas of the collection and entrapment of foreign species existing as an extension to ideas around colonization, collecting and exploitation of other places.

I would be keen to expand on the forays I have made into film as I feel that this has the real potential to produce some exciting and varied results whilst the results achieved via the use of collage in my practice  has made for some really interesting and effective work that I feel could be expanded upon as I go forward with the possibility of transferring some of these over into painting.

New work: Invasion and Eradication Day

Invasion, 53cm x 53cm, Paper Collage

Eradication Day, 53cm x 53cm, Paper Collage.

In preparation for my hand in I have produced two final paper collages which were inspired by my earlier experiments. The first Invasion, features a swirling vortex of invasive species contained within a circular tondo composition. The second, Eradication Day, was inspired by trip to the Wensum Valley to observe the clearing of Himalayan Balsam also constructed as a circular composition around a central point.

 Of the two I feel Invasion is the more successful. With this collage I combined coloured alongside black and white imagery which I placed around a central point to create the impression of a circular movement. This format differs from the earlier paper collages that I had been experimenting with which were constructed on a horizontal and vertical axis. I felt that the circular movement contributed to the impression of displacement and a layering of time and memory exacerbated by the juxtaposition of coloured and black and white imagery and the use of multiple invasive species alongside one another. I also felt that the circular movement gave the image more of an organic feel whilst hinting at an underlying drama, tension and fragmentation.

Although retaining the same format as Invasion I decided to further break up the composition of Eradication Day by including a series of different sized stars across the surface of the piece and surrounding border alongside fragments of text from newspaper articles written about the damaging effects of Himalayan Balsam. Although effective in parts I feel that the juxtaposition of the stars overlaying the backdrop of the contractor clearing the Balsam was not totally effective, as they draw the viewers eye away from the landscape creating an unnecessary distraction.

 My thinking behind using them was that stars are often used as a symbol for celebration or high achievement and would work in direct contrast to the title of the piece Eradication Day and the subject matter: multiple images of a contractor attempting to eradicate the Himalayan Balsam from the landscape. I felt that this paradoxical contrast would  imbue the piece with a degree of irony. I feel that the more ambiguous and organic nature of invasion is more effective however creating a more visually arresting image, which contains within it an underlying tension which operates in more of a subtle way than within Eradication Day.