Ward Hill

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 'Ward Hill' was made during a short micro-residency in the Orkney Islands, supported by funding from the Edinburgh College of Art. The researcher explored a walking as a creatively practice for understanding the landscape, inspired by British artists Richard Long and Hamish Fulton. Footage taken while the researcher/artist was climbing Ward Hill is spatially reconfigured to produce a video installation, where the moving image slowly tracks up the wall of the space in which it is shown. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The video forms a vertical section of the landscape, capturing the diversity of flora in response to altitude and the sensitivity of plant life to these conditions. The accompanying sound is a recording of the researcher's heartbeat matched to his pulse rate while climbing, reinforcing the physicality of the work. This work uses video to create an expanded practice of sectional drawing that incorporates bodily motion and specific qualities of landscape. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The significance of 'Ward Hill' is demonstrated by its multiple invited screenings. The work was first screened in an invited solo exhibition at Sleeper Gallery, Edinburgh (an independent gallery that has also shown the work of artists with international reputations, such as Roger Ackling and Bruce Nauman). It was included in a curated screening, As We Speak in Glasgow (March 2009); screened on The Agent RIA, an artists' YouTube channel and finally included in an exhibiton at Bury Museum and Art Gallery, a public museum in Manchester that is owned by Bury Council. The work was shown alongside that of conceptual artist and typographer Lawerence Weiner and Turner-prize nominee Ian Hamilton Finlay, among others.