Interdisciplinary Approaches 1
- katieiwatk
- Jan 13, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 18, 2024
Geography and Art
Geographers study many aspects of our world, with a focus on locational physical characteristics and how people interact with them. They question how locations “develop and change over time” and how this affects people. Research can be done with various sampling methods, observations, and recording of statistics.
Modern geographical research is typically recorded with a focus on accuracy. Looking back to the sixth century BCE, their earliest notes and mapping (The Imago Mundi) show practical expression rather than exact plots. They showed irrigation systems and landholdings, documenting what people prioritised about this location and what went on there.
Artist Devorah Jacoby’s work entitled “Geography”, explores various interactions with mysterious locations. Her work aims to transport people to different locations, some real, some imagined. Clues in the form of maps are scattered throughout. The actions, poses and scenes depict “lying and falling, fearlessness and fright”. Different movements and emotions to be shared when being ‘taken there’.
This series of works invites people to view and experience key aspects of geography through art - seeing new locations and allowing more people to remotely interact with them.
Inspired by this, I completed multiple responses to a local outdoor space. The first piece is a simple print/press of a flower that I found laying on the path. My interaction with this path was to walk, notice and print. This was done simple by placing it between 2 sketchbook pages and applying pressure to transfer a stain. As there were many fallen flowers, this page has a deeper meaning of a record of one part of nature present just before their autumnal decay.
To further push the possibilities of combining geographical observations and art, I took multiple photos of things that interested me around one location. Combining the Imago Mundis observations of practicality and Jacoby’s imaginative additions, I layered certain features of the photos to create one chaotic scene. Key features such as the man made arches remain visible even though their placement has changed, A non-realistic record of what is present here.This organisation allows the viewer to visually explore an overgrown path to eventually end up at the detailed structure.
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