GROUNDWORK - RESIDENCY AND WORK IN PROGRESS EXHIBITION WITH TRACING THE PATHWAY 

In May/June  2017 I undertook a residency with Tracing the Pathway - Groundwork - a site-based research project based around Milton Keynes.

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Throughout the residency I considered experimental ways of capturing Milton Keynes as a site of family history, structuralist design and biological patterns.   During the first half of the project, I explored the city's architectural nuances, navigating the dichotomy of its landscape as both city and forest. I worked with techniques of digital collage and projection mapping to develop a series of loops, textures and shapes that penetrate the city's concrete form.  

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Work in progress included a projection mapped video installation - a series of video experiments creating a mind-map of my thoughts and findings. The map weaves together different time frames and time periods, creating a conceptual fabric for containing yet distorting MK's infrastructure.  

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As the residency progressed I looked to the spaces in-between the structural forms of the city. Re-visiting my grandfather's farm, I traversed MK’s old tracks and paths, collecting samples of the flora that grow along the route in and out of the city. Considering past personal histories and the city's agricultural heritage, I was inspired to break from the digital and return to analogue techniques. Working with mounted slides I merged organic samples with urban materiality creating microcosmic views of Milton Keynes’ as a complex and rich ecology. I also used photography and film to document my journey and the sites I encountered on the way, charting the process and thinking behind this intricate, structuralist city.

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The research culminated in a site specific installation: Eternity City, in 2018.