Idle Sweats
Starting a residency I often experience a sense of mapping. There is a process of navigation, getting lost, going back to start, resting somewhere in the middle, and at times discovering something new.
I have been researching Deep Mapping as an attempt to position the layered aspect of storytelling within my practice. Deep Mapping is a multi-layered view of a place, weaving together temporal connections of an explored area. DeepMapCork presents a beautiful example of how Deep Mapping can operate. The poster for this residency is a close-up image of my furry collaborator Olive (a two-year-old Golden Retriever). Olive and I spend a lot of time exploring coastlines. Being in a more research stage of my practice, I’ve had time to observe how she maps her surroundings. Her quest for the perfect rock fascinated me, it had to be the right shape to fit securely within her mouth. She would carry it for ages until another would catch her eye.
I was involved in a similar activity searching for rocks that could fit within my pocket. Thinking about the mouth as a pocket, I carried this image with me to the residency. Our pockets are holders, containers, absorbing our leaky contents. Pockets are holders of things unseen, hidden, but vaguely visible as outlines. I positioned this thought by reading Édouard Glissant ‘For Opacity.’ Glissant states;
“Opacities can coexist and converge, weaving fabrics. To understand these truly one must focus on the texture of the weave and not on the nature of its components. For the time being, perhaps, give up this old obsession with discovering what lies at the bottom of natures.”
Thinking about the texture of the weave, I want to expand on layering within my practice. I spend 2023 moving in and out of various residencies which enabled slow reflective time to better understand my method(s) of working. However, I am unsure whether this process of layering narrative translates well within the final work. Currently I am working towards how I can visually present these method(s).
Mentioned reads ~
* http://www.deepmapscork.ie/deep-map-west-cork/deep-maps/
* https://www.jackie-inhalt.net/reh/bilder/edouard-glissant-for-opacity.pdf