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Motorways

Heron’s research examines spaces that the anthropologist Marc Augé describes as the ‘non-places’ of supermodernity. ‘Motorways’ specifically explores the superstructural landscapes of the motorway infrastructure bounded by the M3, M25 and M4, and the convergence of rural and urban space. Like the majority of his work (e.g. ‘Charles Church Houses’, ‘Forests’, early ‘Shopping Centre Interiors’,) it focuses on the spaces that signify the real and imagined landscapes at the intersection of Greater London, suburban and rural South East England.

In his ‘Motorways’ series Heron reverses the experience and topography of motorway infrastructures, downplaying the surrounding landscapes that appear silhouetted against the glow of global infrastructural nodes such as London and Heathrow. The photographs are taken at night from elevated viewpoints to accentuate the form and embody the experience of looking at the apparently mundane. Challenging historical precepts of beauty, these photographs make visible the generally invisible and present an intimate embodied view of these ‘supermodern’ landscapes, devoid of traffic, apparently empty, and overlaid upon local and historical pathways and transit routes.

Using a large format camera and tripod, the work uses an interrupted open camera method in which multiple short exposures are made at moments when the motorway carries no vehicles. This produces uninhabited images of space in which the presence of the viewer is accentuated by the absence of vehicles. The work is printed and framed for exhibition, displayed in closely resembling pairs or sequences that stimulate analytical, comparative viewing. This series contributes to a body of contemporary work exploring nocturnal landscapes created by artists such as Darren Almond, Susan Derges, Dan Holdsworth and Sophy Rickett. The work was first shown as part of a group exhibition: ‘Night: A Time Between’, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, curated by Janette Kerr, in May 2008.

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