Due to a technical (hosting) meltdown elsewhere, I'm attempting to retrieve and piece together some remnants of a 'creative diary' - a rescue mission. These writings were originally assembled during, and soon after, a period as artist-in-residence at the Grand Canyon (Arizona) in 2011.
(Below is a combination of all the entries into a single blog-post; parts of the entries are currently missing. Perhaps the time has come to pick up some of these old threads?)
Moving from the 'Dylan pilgrimage' location at the Aust Ferry jetty to some poetic words of his:
"Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
(1964)
Dammed (Damned) Landscapes
During the slow assembly of a new publication based on two landscape-residency projects, there has bubbled up the memory of an aerial photograph, from 1946, (shown above) of the farmhouse now ‘drowned’ beneath the Hawkridge reservoir near the Quantock Hills, Somerset. This was a topic I briefly explored - and put aside - during the Quantock Dreaming investigations. But it now returns, in a changed and charged way, as I become aware of the many drowned/dammed/damned landscapes that have featured in my creative projects and residencies. It seems now an inescapable thread - one that is destined to form the warp for my present audio-visual weavings. I am working on a film/sound piece as a stepping stone to a more complex installation. Some of the far-flung landscapes in question (or currently under investigation) are: The Colorado River at the Grand Canyon; The Alqueva Dam and the (former) Guadiana River Valley in Portugal; the aforementioned Quantock reservoir; and a nod also to the Colorado Delta, Mexico - not dammed (but possibly damned?), but affected by the 100 or so dams upriver on the Colorado.
more on this very soon...
