2010-2011
This series of works began at the Gleniffer Braes sub-station. I’d been thinking about the use and re-use of land, and the man-made, linear superstructures which connect and subdivide our landscape.
I came across an early document for Landscape Character Assessment; a standardised tool used by various agencies to guide them in their decision-making processes e.g. planning pylon routes through landscapes of differing ‘values’.
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Using the sub-station, I began thinking of how decisions are made about the generation and distribution of power, the placement of its distinctive artefacts in the landscape, and the effect this has on the landscape and on people.
It seems to me, that to have a valid opinion about the decisions being made, I have to try to unpick the myths and the truths of my idea of landscape and how those myths and truths came to be: from received understandings inherited from my parents i.e. their relationship with landscape which was in turn, shaped by their parents experience. This must then be overlaid and modified by the evolving politics and ethics which have played out through all of our lifetimes.
gleniffer braes : substation : 2D work
YB pylon route : gleniffer to braehead