Thursday 30 April
Reflections on the camp out and the cultural differences of BYC and WMC
Lili Hall BYU student
When I was a little girl, I would go on road trips with my dad. He would give me a map of Southern Utah and tell me that I could pick any point on any road, and off we would go. As a result, I've been exposed to many rugged terrains off the beaten path, and the sometimes barren/ sometimes lush (it all depends on elevation, the latitude, and the time of year) landscape of Escalante is very familiar and homey to me. I was excited to go to Bryce Canyon with the Liverpool group, though, since this is one famous site in my own home state that I've never seen with my own eyes.
I found that being with people who were seeing this kind of landscape for the first time influenced the way I viewed things–I kept wondering what our new friends were thinking of the mountains, of the highways, the dry air, the red rocks, the heights, the blue sagebrush, the s'mores…of everything. Viewing the sites through their eyes gave me a bit of a fresh perspective on the land I sometimes take for granted. I paid attention to the comments people made–both from the BYU group as well as the Liverpool group. The Liverpudlians expressed things such as "I feel so small" or "everything is so big," while those of us who grew up here said things like "even though I've never been to this very spot, it still feels like coming home." I don't typically realize just how cowboy-ish this countryside really is until I'm with people with lovely English accents!
In October, I came home from a yearlong study program in England. Having lived in the English countryside so recently, I can't help but juxtapose the two places (Utah and England) in my mind as I embark on this Mapping the West art collaboration. The two landscapes are so vastly different… but they're the two parts of the world most familiar to me.
I think that travel impacts the way one sees and appreciates their own home. The fact that I've seen Liverpool gives me a bit of insight as to where my new friends are coming from as they come out to visit. I can't help but link the two places in my mind as I approach this Mapping the West book arts project, and I think that my piece for the show will be an exploration of my thoughts as to how the two places and their people are (or are not) linked insofar as my own experiences are concerned.
