Statement

My recent work places photography within other arenas of research, including archaeology, geology, cultural geography and histories of the land. I have used the photographic medium as a mode of enquiry within these disciplines, producing work that has inter-disciplinary ambitions, and that acts as a creative, visual counterpoint to purely scientific perspectives. My work is concerned, on one level, with the scrutiny of natural phenomena and, on another level, with the landscape as a site of encounter, revelation and transformation.

Ultima Thule was recently exhibited at Impressions, Bradford. It is the first in an ongoing series of major projects that I plan to make at significant points on the tectonic map. Ultima Thule was made in Iceland, on the divergent boundary of the Eurasian and American tectonic plates. Through an examination of associated geological phenomena such as volcanism, geothermal activity and glaciation, the series imagines the primordial beginnings of the Earth. It is the temporal foundation for future projects.

The photographs adopt a quasi-scientific mode of observation. They deliberately show an uninhabited landscape that is entirely free of human interference, yet landscape as a cultural construct is never entirely eliminated. The series was initially inspired by the Greek explorer Pytheas’ journey to Iceland and the far northern edges of the known world, which he called Ultima Thule. It begins at Pytheas’ most northerly outreach, at the edge of the Arctic Circle.

A number of other photographs depict sites used by Apollo astronauts before the first Lunar landing, and sites that are the closest equivalent on Earth to the surface of Mars. The detailed scrutiny of complex geological processes is seen within the context of human endeavour, encounter and the persistent human urge to explore unknown territory.

Grimsvötn – Gigjukvisl is an extension of the Ultima Thule project. In 2008, I took part in a scientific field expedition to observe ice-volcano interaction in the Grimsvötn caldera with a group of volcanologists and earth scientists. The expedition was led by the Icelandic Glaciological Society, in cooperation with the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI).

Grimsvötn is a sub-glacial volcano, lying at the heart of Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. It is Iceland’s most frequently eruptive volcano and is a source of geothermally and volcanically induced Jokulhaups (glacial floods). My photographs examine the exposed surfaces of the caldera walls and the remains of recent eruptions, where 250-300m deep ice has been opened to reveal a hidden landscape in a state of transformation. It is a temporary landscape of glacial ice and volcanic tephra, with depressions created by sub-glacial geothermal activity. Grimsvötn – Gigjukvisl also examines the Skeidararsandur outwash plain, where successive jokulhaups have emerged from the glacier’s edge, at the Gigjukvisl river.

 

Opened Landscape: Lindow, Tollund, Grauballe, is a response to the archaeological discoveries made at three north-European bogland sites in England and Denmark. The landscape acts as a system of memory, where preserved bodies and artefacts connect us with ancient historical and human events. The photographic scrutiny of exposed surfaces is equivalent to that of the archaeologist and links the contemporary landscape directly to the Iron Age and Neolithic past. This series has been shown in inter-disciplinary contexts – both archaeological and literary. It is currently showing at Manchester Museum, with the 2000-year-old body of Lindow Man.