Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Derby
'Clayscape'
Solo Exhibition - 13 Pieces
The use of different media reinforces the intimate multi-sense relationship between clay work and site compared to the voyeuristic experience of landscape from the motorway or the nostalgia for English landscape associated with Australia. Each venue has been interrogated for the additional significance it attaches to the work. For example work selected for America included NN14 (site: Thrapston Church yard and burial place of George Washington’s Uncle) and B17 (site: Molesworth Airfield assigned to the USAF 358th Bombardment Squadron in WW2).
The research was developed in the knowledge that Wolfson is an entirely science-based college. Blackie’s research in China was applied to a set of specific, East Midland landscapes, associated with controversy including the infamous Huntingdon Life Science (HLS) laboratory. The work investigated the physical characteristics of the sites and used local ‘found’ clay for both practical and symbolic purposes. The HLS project explored the rendering in clay of wild plants gathered from the laboratory’s perimeter fence, juxtaposed with texts that challenged a hierarchical view of nature and the natural. The research question informing the exhibition was whether a ubiquitous subject could be reformed to give new and relevant meaning in an increasingly fluid society.
Contrasting encoded materials were used to explore aspects of current landscape theory and theories of representation with particular reference to the work of Denis E Cosgrove, Jessica Dubow, Tim Ingold, and John Wylie, together with Claudia Benthien, Stuart Hall and Daniel Miller.
The exhibition has produced two publications and a conference paper: Blackie S. September 2012 (no35) Making Places, Making People, Ceramic Technical pages15-19 +cover ISSN 1324-4175 and Blackie.s, October 2012 Clayscape Ceramic Review pages 64-65 ISSN 0144-1825. Blackie.S.(2012) Clayscapes. Affective Landscape Conference. 25th 26th May. University of Derby.
A new body of Landscape research has evolved focusing on, the late 16th Century home of Sir Thomas Tresham and its Elizabethan grade 1 listed garden, managed by The National Trust, a site of international importance. The research has developed into two further exhibitions, shown as ‘Edify’ and simultaneously as photographs at Watford Gap Service Station (annual visitors 1.5 million) as ‘North of Watford Gap: Clayscapes of the East Midlands’. The photographs were subsequently shown in the National Art School, Sydney, Australia (2013).
