Prospects

Gunpowder Park is 255 acres of regenerated green space dedicated to arts-led collaborations that explore relationships between urban and rural environments and the public. I was invited to develop a series of artworks in direct response to a strategy for public engagement as part of Gunpowder Park’s research programme into the arts/science/nature confluence at the Park. The brief was to explore ways of engaging the public with the scientific and ecological principles underlying the Park - namely the creation and evolution of its four bio-regions. The work produced for the Park itself, Prospects I-IV, captured the micro aspects of these bio-regions (Shock Wave Galleries, Blast Mound Plateau, The Energy Fields and The Salix) and tracked changes in these environments over three months. Three sets of glass slides were left in the bio-regions and the resulting ‘accidental’ collections were photographed for display at viewpoint locations. During each of those three months, visitors observed new images celebrating those aspects of the environment, which might otherwise have passed unnoticed. Viewing these micro-scale images against the Park’s vast landscape gave viewers the opportunity to travel between both interpretations and engage with their environment. This in-situ work was supported by an exhibition in Gunpowder Park’s Field Station. For this I collaborated with Lea Valley Park Rangers and Conservation Officers: these experts examined each slide and documented the flora on them, interpreting movements of species across the bio-regions and tracking the establishment (or otherwise) of indigenous and imported species on the brown-field site. This exhibition therefore provided a dramatic visual and textual taxonomy of species, their establishment, migration and survival across the site. The local press tracked changes on the site over time by a visual diary using these photographs to reflect local community involvement and ownership of the project