In the forest, field and studio: art/making/methodology and the more-than-written in the rendering of place is an arts practice led PhD that incorporates fieldwork into its exploration of particular forests in the North of Scotland, specifically Abernethy Forest in Cairngorm National Park and Culbin Forest in Morayshire. This thesis consists of three elements, each of which speaks to and adds context, value and depth to the other: an exhibition of artworks and a collection of multi-media essays, and a written exegesis.
The thesis explores how a contemporary arts practice can help articulate a place’s multi-layered complexities and how processes of coming to know influence and impact on the kinds of artworks created. This way of working incorporates an innovative approach that draws on geographical, anthropological, historical and ecological sources, and includes the synthesis of a contemporary arts practice with an ethnographic element - more specifically participant observation - as a mode of gathering. In the course of the research, I walked through these places with foresters and ecologists and volunteered on a nature reserve. Repeated visits to these places and the incorporation of other peoples’ knowledge and experiences facilitated the attunements to place that created the conditions necessary for gathering the raw materials for art-production. Description and examination of encounters in the field give context to the artwork and provide additional knowledge that lends insight into management practices and the knowledge that these workers possess. The research constitutes an original contribution to investigations of the forests of Culbin and Abernethy and correspondingly innovative outputs.
This research proposes that a contemporary arts practice can articulate and communicate aspects and elements of place in ways that offer insights to artists, geographers, anthropologists and others. Central to this is the idea that places are multi-layered, ever-changing, embodied, active and containing complex ecological, sensorial and physical histories and presences. Places also evoke different responses, and require ways of engaging with and being in them that are multisensorial, dependent on their nature and reliant on the sense of purpose of those who visit or inhabit them. Communicating these understandings requires a multi-faceted way of working and multi-modal ways of articulation in recognition of place as an experiential field of investigation. The art produced forms a non-linear, multi-stranded body of work that emphasises the benefits of multiple formats within an arts practice. These include etchings, photography, video, sound, bookworks, creative non-fiction and sculptural works that are rooted in awareness of contemporary arts practice and how other artists have engaged with physical, material and conceptual notions of land and place. The artwork enhances and further complicates conceptualisations of place that in geography and anthropology are often restricted to academic writing. The richness of the information collected in the course of ethnographic fieldwork raises challenges to the artist with regard to how such information might be incorporated into an arts practice. The nature of the artwork produced and described in the course of the research demonstrates how artists and others can usefully enlarge and expand the ways in which places can be articulated and rendered.