by Sarah Casey
Glacial flour on glass watchface
h: 5 w: 5 d: 1 (cms).
Negative space drawings on glass watch faces made with glacial flour ( sediment left by retreating glaciers ). The light passes though the unmarked areas , casting a shadow of absence on the wall / surface around the work. Images were gathered during field work visit to sites where glacial archaeology has been found in the Swiss alps during residency at Musee d’art du Valais (2023). (“Ice Watcher” is the name for the app used by the canton to report discoveries of human artefacts revealed by melting ice.) The shadowy presence recalls not only the absence of the ice retreated from these areas, but also the impossible ideal of sublime imaginary that these mountain vistas evoke. My recent collaboration with glacial archaeologists in Switzerland, in high alpine regions, accessible only on foot and subject to harsh conditions of weathering and erosion has prompted me to rethink the nature of wild places. While these sites are now considered remote, archaeology shows these places were once busy transit routes linking Europe. Moreover, the anthropogenic traces in melting ice -from archaeology to microscopic chemicals– highlight artificiality of the boundary between human and nature. I realised ‘wild’ is a relative term. With freeze and thaw, these environments are in a state of flux. Now evermore so due to climate emergency. The environment is changing, and my recent work has sought to amplify these invisible signs of change and human entanglement in these ‘wild’ places, focusing not on what is lost (the ice) but what emerges. What does a wild mean to me? Wilderness is not ‘out there’ or other than the human, it’s a recognition of fragile ecology of human and more-than-human relationships for which we are implicated and consequently have a responsibility of care as co-habitants. My current work looks for ways to become more attentive to this looking at Scotland as a post-glacial landscape.
£350
Please Note: Not all the originals are for sale. Please contact wildspace@johnmuirtrust.org to be put in touch with the artist. Prices may vary from those listed online.
by Sarah Casey
Glacier flour on glass watch face & light, projected with ohp
h: 50 w: 36 d: 36 (cms).
A series of 9 glass watch faces ( each 4.5-5cm diameter) painted with glacial flour ( sediment left by retreating glaciers ). Each drawing depicts (post) glacial site in Switzerland visited by the artist in summer 2023 through her residency at Musee d’art du Valais where she also gathered glacial flour left by retreating glacier used here as the pigment to make the images. The work is part of the wider project Emergency! about what emerges as a result of glacial retreat. Placed on an OHP, shadows are cast on the wall. The viewer sees not the drawing but its trace, via the means of this nearly obsolete technology. The yellow glow from the electric bulb of lends the work a sepia glow, recalling early photographic images of high mountain areas before the impact of that industrialisation of that period was to be seen. Gentle critique of the romanticised view of high mountain areas as remote, out of reach and uninhabited. An impossible ideal for these mountains are places of passage, pilgrimage and leisure pursuits and resources used by humans for centuries to support their lives.
Please Note: Not all the originals are for sale. Please contact wildspace@johnmuirtrust.org to be put in touch with the artist. Prices may vary from those listed online.