Issue 02 - Landscape
Barbara Journal
2022
Editing + Design
Gordon Macindoe
Sarah Manderson
Esther Pearce
Barbara Journal
2022
Editing + Design
Gordon Macindoe
Sarah Manderson
Esther Pearce
“What about landscape, in this moment, from this place?
A cultural text, a human mythology, a way of reading, a way of seeing, being within and engaging with the terrain and water worlds of this planet?
Emerging from the long shadow of Western-centric traditions, landscapes can no longer be envisioned as discrete, pure, hierarchical and compliant. Instead we tune in to stories of the awkward, intangible, destructive, revelatory, and vulnerable.
These are landscapes woven from the weird, wild web of human entanglement with other species and matter.
Let's begin by traversing the paradoxical terrain of our odd intimacies with this planet. The sites and systems we inhabit and intervene in abound with contradictions - destruction and tenderness, absurdity and enchantment. The relentless reach of capitalism converts geographical features into homogenized megastructures of exploitation. At the same time, diverse and complex non-western cosmologies depict landscapes as full of agency and in constant dialgoue with all living process.
The way we represent places - via images, words and actions is underwritten by preconceived perspectives, intentions, and politics. By attempting to dismantle stale binaries - nature and culture, interior and exterior, land and water, human and other creative practices can reframe the representation of the terrain and water worlds of our shared local and global habitats.”
A cultural text, a human mythology, a way of reading, a way of seeing, being within and engaging with the terrain and water worlds of this planet?
Emerging from the long shadow of Western-centric traditions, landscapes can no longer be envisioned as discrete, pure, hierarchical and compliant. Instead we tune in to stories of the awkward, intangible, destructive, revelatory, and vulnerable.
These are landscapes woven from the weird, wild web of human entanglement with other species and matter.
Let's begin by traversing the paradoxical terrain of our odd intimacies with this planet. The sites and systems we inhabit and intervene in abound with contradictions - destruction and tenderness, absurdity and enchantment. The relentless reach of capitalism converts geographical features into homogenized megastructures of exploitation. At the same time, diverse and complex non-western cosmologies depict landscapes as full of agency and in constant dialgoue with all living process.
The way we represent places - via images, words and actions is underwritten by preconceived perspectives, intentions, and politics. By attempting to dismantle stale binaries - nature and culture, interior and exterior, land and water, human and other creative practices can reframe the representation of the terrain and water worlds of our shared local and global habitats.”
