Dig a bit deeper - connection and contemporary landscape art

Masters Research - Master of Philosophy (MPhil)This paper examines how memory, knowledge and connection are imbued in place. Considering how place can inhabit self and self can inhabit place. This proposition is reinforced by looking at many models and cross cultural examples as well as the work of theorists such as Casey, Relph and Blowby. The proposition that we are strongly related to our geographical locations, and by considering the similarities in make up of the earth to our bodies, a case is made that we are biologically and chemically part of the land. This becomes so by acknowledging that what we eat is of the land and hence there is a strong correlation between the two. It is then considered that since we are part of the land the land in turn becomes part of us. The off campus performance work On becoming a Witch provided a very powerful link between the exegesis and the studio work. It examined yet another way in which one is able to relate to country by the use of ritual, myth and symbolism in a specific bush setting. It brought together skills related to theatre, opera, costume design and music. This has been fully documented as part of the exegesis. The studio component of this thesis examines how one can closely relate one’s paintings and drawings to a sense of place and country by the use of materials such as ochres and the use of strong simple abstract forms. The use of a dominant symbol, the ziggurat, has been explained as well as the processes used with the result being a series of strong paintings and drawings. These act as a tangible link between self and a sense of place