Statement
As I look back on my work over the years, the main line of enquiry seems to be related to issues to do with time and place, with identity, culture and heritage. How do we relate to the past? What does it say about who we are in the present? Is there a need to ossify the past, to preserve every fragment of past lives in order to give us a sense of who we are as a society today?
My current research is a practice-led enquiry into the commodification of people and place. This research is examining through a series of
practice-based projects the contested ground of heritage and place. It is looking at whether it is possible to use the processes of art practice to create a counter-narrative of place.
Production of difference is a particular issue in a rural area where culture is objectified as tourist product and homes built for use by people living and working the land, become rural idylls for those seeking second home retreats. The presented face is either of picture postcard image or official designation (UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Parks etc) - many people living in these settings feel like they are living in a museum piece.
The work explores questions around how identity, culture and heritage are preserved and (re)presented, and how contemporary culture is framed by and also constructs the past in an attempt to make sense of an endemic sense of rootlessness in a fast changing world…
The work looks at ways in which a different narrative can be reflected and presented using visual arts processes by focussing on the everyday, on story, by attempting to ‘rework the idea of culture against the backdrop of emerging issues’*. It plays with the transient, appropriating form (an estate agency, a visitor centre, a board game...) and
re-presenting it out of its usual context in a gallery setting, where it can be interrogated. This reworking of culture is characterized by an involvement with the everyday, and an approach that seeks to make the invisible visible. Embedding practice in the local, in context or place becomes a socio-political act that forefronts issues to do with contemporary living.
*http://www.grizedale.org/about