14/7 St.Margaret’s at Cliffe – was invited to explore a 2 acre garden which held the remnants of the homes of several generations of one family. Enjoyed photographing old pillars, a gun emplacement, and particularly some patches of concrete – of which there was plenty…. the views across yellow fields to the smouldering blue of the channel and over to Holland were just sumptuous. The area is rich with traces of the Second World War – a pillbox, traces of trenches and a fuel store.
Am becoming drawn to expanses of concrete and to flat empty-ish landscapes – common here in south east Kent and in Pas de Calais.
Off to Boulogne next week to continue my research and make work for St.Omer. Am looking forward to having time to collate and reflect on all the bits of video and photography I have collected and begin to construct some kind of narrative.
14/7 Capel-le-Ferne – stopped at Battle of Britain Memorial overlooking the channel. The site is landscaped to emphasise the skies and sea where much of the battle of Britain took place. The memorials to those who died in World War II at both Dover and Eperleques are stirring with their fresh flowers and long lists of names.
The horizon vanishes and the sea merges lazily with the sky yet the whole place is alive with buzz of lawn mowers and the drone of aircaft over head. Life goes on.
The landscape and history of North East France and Kent visually echo each other – both marked by flat plains, Napoleonic canals, and fortresses and more recently by pillboxes, gun emplacements, defensive structures and blockhauses. These mementos to a collective history of war sit benignly amidst the buddleia and ivy, often hidden but still able to transmit a sense of shock and awe.
I have been filming and photographing some of these elements with an idea of somehow highlighting and amalgamating these forms and scars to explore how we exist within Europe.
6/07 Maidstone – was taken to this bleak and abandoned industrial estate by Mel who did work experience with me earlier in the year – admired her tenacity at dragging a projector, battery and tent from the station out to this very lonely place – where she made work for her degree show.
Not quite so brave myself but intrigued by the miles of concrete roadways and side roads almost like a series of short runways – perhaps it was somewhere to park vehicles ready for something.
The site seems quite remote, with a large sewerage work one side, fields and woodland on another side and an impenetrable wilderness seperating this site and the nearest human activity – functioning factoris about a mile away.
Nearby Abbey established in 12 th C. nearby and still functioning adds a human scale to a really strange place.
3/7 Hythe and Dungeness- made leisurely trip up the coast from Hastings to Hythe … visiting a smouldering Dungeness en route …. everything hovers on the horizon suspended in a filmy haze. Landscape utterly flat and stoney like a huge extended beach. The power station, magnificent and moody from a distance, is more prosaic up close just like a bunch of factories and offices.
Driving helps me think things through – trying to formulate ways of showing work at St,Omer station – need some kind of inter activeness from users/audience – tricky. Ideas come and go is visual waves in pre-verbal ways and can’t quite pin it all down yet.
Forget that some people go to the coast for leisure ! must remember to take my own kids soon !
28/6 Sevenoaks – Swift sunshiney visit to Sevenoaks Station last Sunday on way to see Jude Law in Hamlet (very good !) but took a few photos part typical suburban commuter belt haven – part evergrowing railway station … developing ideas about being in transit and points of departure.
