Michael Eden

This project explores the potential for creative processes to provide what has been termed, better analogues of nature by the ecologist Don Gayton. Including analogues, metaphors and modes of engagement that can incorporate aspects of flux, change and disturbance events into an active subjective experience of the environment. Moreover, the project looks at the ways a personal experience of space that emphasizes doubt, probing and a generally heuristic approach to the environment increases the aesthetic range of possibilities for individuals and is bolstered by the act of drawing.

The project utilizes reportage drawing and photography in a specific location and draws on the phenomena of pareidolia to create a more creative/active role for the artist and viewer, which is nevertheless linked directly to real observations. The project problematizes other modes of landscape representation, namely what is referred to as the nostalgic axis (the intertwining of the pastoral, the picturesque and general nostalgic aesthetics). This is the first phase of the project and a completed critical text is currently undergoing review. 

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