Project 2

Navigators

Three beacons triangulated and connected by the river Thames.

WEEKS 6-10

Tearing Time, through images of The Barbican, Canary wharf and Westminster, to explore and rediscover the past, where it joins the present while pointing towards the future and man’s continuum. Why these three places interested me slowly revealed themselves while we researched. I decided to stay undecided about the project for as long as possible to see what would surface – as Katrina Palmer suggests in her method of in-depth research. Not rushing allowed my thoughts to become more abstract, more emotional and explorative, I began to think of each of these places as beacons on the London landscape.

In each place, I discovered images, writing, texture and marks that evoked both spontaneous and contrived reactions within me about familial nostalgia and those who had lived worked and built in each place. In this way, I discovered portraits and stories that I could read and respond to. My response was both conscious and unconscious while I touched the surfaces beneath me and examined the spaces and structures between.

Sometimes it was the absence of marks or structures that gave The strongest feeling. Indeed not all the marks were human or static, many were natural, animal or elemental, as the air swept through, the water rushed under, and the clouds moved over our heads.

Together, synergistically they created feelings that evoked images. Each place had a distinct identity, but they were all connected by their pasts, presents and futures, and the natural elements around them that included the seagulls that kept popping up ridiculously every time we sat and pondered.

Navigators Poem

Navigators Essay in full