A Sense of Place, Memory and Walking

Leading on from my research and work that centered on invasive species within the landscape I became interested in researching ideas relating to walking, memory and place.

'The walk creates a speculative experience of the world, between the stable and ephemeral, continually undoing and remaking relationships between fixed elements. The more you see the less you hold. To walk is to lack place. It represents an indefinite process of being absent from your goal of searching.' Nature and Nation: Vaster than Empires, Julian Walker, 2003 

Sketchbook images, mixed media, collage, crayon and ink on paper, each image 14.5 x 21cm

The Rings of Saturn, W.G.Sebald (1995) is an account of Sebald's walk through the Suffolk landscape acting as a trigger for the unfolding of historic events. Sebald attempts to tell the reader about the walk but ends up describing the catastrophe of western culture. The landscapes which at first appear innocent are in fact loaded with elements from their past which spill out of the pages of Sebald's book.

'But the fact is that writing is the only way in which I am able to cope with the memories which overwhelm me so frequently and so unexpectedly.... Memories lie slumbering within us for months and years, quietly proliferating, until they are woken by some trifle and in some strange way blind us to life.... And yet what would we be without memory? We would not be capable of ordering even the simplest thoughts, our existence would be a never ending chain of meaningless moments.... My sense of estrangement is becoming more and more dreadful' The Rings of Saturn, W.G.Sebald, 1995, pg 255.

Sketchbook Images, mixed media, collage, crayon and ink on paper, each image 14.5 x 21

Another aspect of my research relates to the fashion with which place and memory are often inextricably intertwined. The places which feature within memories are often filtered through the onlookers affective glance, becoming irrevocably associated with the emotions that the onlooker was feeling at that particular moment. The resultant memory may represent a synthesizing of the two forms combining to form an inseparable hybrid of cognitive and visual factors.

'Space defines landscape. Space combined with memory defines place.' The Lure of the Local, senses of place in a multicentered society, Lucy R. Lippard, 1997

Invasion, 
Paper Collage, 2014

Herocleum Mantegazziamum, 
Paper Collage, 2014

Fallopia Japonica, 
Paper Collage, 2014

Impatiens Glandulifera, 
Paper Collage, 2014

My invasive species collages were based on a subversion of C19th ideas surrounding the sublime and the changing values and meanings of objects within the landscape from a historical to contemporary perspective. In the case of many of the invasive species they were originally introduced into England during the C19th by the Victorians for their decorative and ornamental qualities before subsequently escaping and spread into the wild becoming a pest, nuisance and environmental hazard, thus their meaning and values.

Continuing with this train of thought  I took a three hour walk around Sheringham Park in North Norfolk. Sheringham park was designed by the C19th landscape gardener Humphry Repton (1752-1818) . The English landscape movement of which Repton was a major figure had an irreversible impact on the British Interpretation of Nature, with its inability to separate its idealised vision of Nature from any notion of real wilderness. It was deeply intertwined with British perceptions of peaceful, civilized refinement.  

'The perfection of landscape gardening consists in the four following requisites. First, it must display the natural beauties and hide the defects of every situation. Secondly, it should give the appearance of extent and freedom by carefully disguising or hiding the boundary. Thirdly, it must studiously conceal every interference of art. However expensive by which the natural scenery is improved; making the whole appear the production of nature only; and fourthly, all objects of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental, or of becoming proper parts of the general scenery, must be removed or concealed' The Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphrey Repton, 1840, pg 84-85.
 

 Studies from Sheringham Park, Mixed Media Collage, approximately 40 x 40cm

My intention for these pieces was to create a series of fragmented collages, based on photographs taken whilst walking around Sheringham Park. I hope that the collages would function as a way of encapsulating themes relating to walking, place, memory and some of the ideas emerging from Sebald's The Rings of Saturn involving the idea of place as a trigger for memory.