THE ORDER OF THE LAND
I grew up close to the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, and for me the place represents many different eras and various transitions. I have childhood memories of running down the hills at full speed, family picnics, friends, walks, exploring nature and thoughtful contemplation. I consider it to be a place of return, a place of knowing and a place of inspiration. I have focused this body of work on walking through the landscape, which is topological in approach. The photographs that I have selected demonstrate the types of pathways that can be discovered on the hills. Many of the concrete pathways were put in place during the Victorian period to accommodate visitors to the area and allow easy access to the various summits. Other pathways don’t even exist on the maps and have simply been created by regular walkers of the hills. The variety of pathways depicted also offer a sense of history to the landscape adding the perception of time to the body of work.
Each photograph has been referenced according to its point on the national grid reference system and I have also taken a compass direction. I then included this reference on the bottom right hand corner of the photograph, which acts in a similar manner to a bar code that can be found on consumables in a shop. The reference can then be translated on an Ordnance Survey map and the photographic reader could if they so wished discover the location of the photograph and the view at the destination. There are 59 images in total, which have mainly been edited for the purpose of the book publication, but I felt that a substantial number of images were required for this particular body of work to fully demonstrate the pathways on the hills and my topological approach. The final images are Postmodern and conceptual in form offering space for the reader to consider the work. The format of the image entices the reader to walk along the path and it also acts as a contradiction to the traditional landscape format.
The location of this project is a representation of my hometown and holds an emotional aesthetic that perhaps I wish to keep secret to the greater population in the manner that I don’t let you see the view. You would need to go there yourself and figure it out from my reference points. In adulthood my playfulness certainly doesn’t disappear, but one should consider this body of work in a wider context of landscapes that surround all of us. This project represents a socio-political reflection on human interaction with the landscape and demonstrates the desire to conquer, control and reference a landscape in a method that creates an order to the land. I wish the reader to consider how contemporary society interacts with the landscape and the effect that this has on the environment. It is certainly not a nostalgic attempt to restore the land particularly as my images encourage people to explore the landscape. The work perhaps promotes people to consider the landscape itself as a form of living art; my aim is simply to raise attention, question and provoke thought.
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