Here is an update from the Byway cairns project. It’s a month on since my last post charting the growth of these collections of salvaged detritus. Autumn is setting in, so leaves have been adding themselves to the cairns, alongside the collected waste.
I have been reading Jane Bennett’s “Vibrant Matter” in which she argues for a theory of vital materialism, where non-human actants are able to display their agency. Her writing has struck a cord with me in reference to this work. Both piles have grown and shifted. I have collected more rubbish to add to them but gravity and the elements have also been at work. Some items have disappeared completely, others have blown away a little, or have started sliding downhill. Rubbish Cairn No.2 is the more dynamic of the pair. It is sited on a steeper slope, further up the hill from the first, and is harder to reach.
I’ve also started making a short film about the walk along this Byway, with which I hope to bring the location and the activities of walking and collecting into my studio practice. There will be ways of projecting the film within or onto elements of installation. I am currently experimenting with installation ideas in a series of models which incorporate my photographs of detritus with topographical contour imagery. Below are examples, using red Fimo figures to give a sense of scale.
Liz Clifford 