Borders Update

Coming out of the MA I was looking for a project that I could explore further the approach and subjects I’d been studying for the final major project, this is 2020 though..

I wanted to make a set of images that explored the photograph as document, New Topographical, banal, ordinary, ‘straight’ photography as it has been called and I’d grouped under the umbrella term, to explore in my final MA piece. 

Subject matter came from the news providing the second most compelling subject of 2020 with the near constant debate on borders in the form of the EU, independence, what they entail and what they don’t.

The image making aspect of the work has informed this project and the research side of this work is still at an initial stage, but the basis of this work are 2 borders within the UK and its border with Ireland. When you view these borders on a map, they don’t always follow the straightest of lines, in the most part they tend to follow topographical details such as mountains, rivers, outcrops etc but every now and again there seems to be an unexplainable curve that doesn’t seem to have any relation to a geographical feature. So why do they do this? Further research is needed to examine why this is but initially for an image based project I wanted to see what these areas of land actually looked like.

They are completely normal places, very reminiscent of when you went on a school trip to a battlefield (do they still do these sorts of trips?). Flat pieces of land that had significance but now they are almost indiscernible from any other plots of land.

I had hoped to get this designed, printed and out by today (31-12-20) but different elements of the work have delayed the publication of the material in a zine format, however, I still wanted to get it out on this date so I’ve done this post and included 3 images from the work. I’m not sure these images will make the final cut so it feels good to share them and put it out there that this is what I was doing in 2020. 

I’m slowly refining my style as Urgent Temporality but feel that one of the main areas of interest is the absurdity of living. I appreciate that in the current climate this can be both sad and heart-breaking but I feel that this has been an element of my work that I want to carry on under the Urgent Temporality banner so it will transcend the current situation.

Thanks for taking an interest in this, please let me know any thoughts about the images, the work or Urgent Temporality in general.

Thank you.