"Before it can ever be a repose for the senses, landscape is a work of the mind. It's scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock."
Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory
"When I see an image on top of another image, and given an image is exposed by light and the amount of time given to expose, I feel as if I am looking at time that folds, time that unfolds, time that collapses, time that is elastic, time that might be linear, time that might be cyclical....time on top of time.....I wonder how long or how much time those trees you depict have been there and how much more time they will have?"
Dinu Li, Artist and Academic
Developed from the previous series "Evidence of Unknown Journeys", this subsequent work "Rights of Way", is concerned with the representation of time, experience of travelling, on foot, through the landscape, flattened and expressed through collaged images, each final work representing the sum of a single walk. Whereas "Evidence of Unknown Journeys" represented the walk; time and space, in a series of discrete images, this work conflates time, space, experience, history, "rights of way" and memory to create an aggregated response.
This work is also an inquiry into access, and the limitations placed on us the people, by "Landowners". Prior to the Enclosure Acts, in England, we the populace, could roam the landscape at will. Following that act we are left with "Rights of Way" which actually only represent the residue of former possibilities.*
These images, as with the landscapes they reference, are constructs, designed to question the authenticity of our experience.
* Enclosure Acts cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 individual enclosure acts were passed, affecting 28,000 km2.[1]
Prints from this series are available to purchase in a total edition of 25 across all sizes, produced using archival pigment inks on the finest artists papers. The sizes available are based on a paper size of approx 30cm x 40cm and 60cm x 80cm and will have a border to facilitate framing. There is also an edition of 3 printed directly to Dibond at 100cm on the longest dimension. All prints have a signed certificate of authenticity.
