A newly acquired property in the Tamar Valley prompted the research, Mapping ruderality: heading for design. With ownership comes a natural inclination to make change, to imprint one’s mark on the land. In order to inform decision-making and to maximize understanding of this new place called home, my research maps the cultural and natural phenomena of the site and its surrounds as a direct response to prevailing concerns.
Working at the interface of art and design, one informs the other, setting the conditions for change. An alternative cartographic practice which infuses rational, detached observation with the subjectivity of experience takes cues from the ruderal state to engage with current issues in land use and design, and augments the tradition of map-making in place-making.
Graticules and rhumb lines of individual works converge in a larger exploratory grid to reveal the distortions, biases, influences and ambiguities that are inherent in the project of mapping. Together hermeneutics and mapping locate the research specifically here, and, at a remove, should be comprehended as (anywhere) there.
Graduated: 2011
Supervisors:
