Altered Ground.
'Each area altering dramatically, each visit offering new creative possibilities, construction hoardings meander snake-like through the landscape, ground overturned and inverted. Trees witnessing these transformations stand still and majestic, their roots spreading out amongst the rubble. New roads cut through the landscape awaiting their purpose as buildings rise up from the ground brick by brick.'
‘Altered Ground’ is concerned with marginal areas of urban space as they undergo extensive development. After the stillness and inactivity pervading recent years the construction of these developments has recommenced. By personal interactions with the environment, Dianne Whyte looks at the transformation of these spaces, from new builds to the present ongoing alteration of the landscape.
The work is a personal experience of walking within a space, a space that is becoming ‘Place’. Trees dominate the imagery, standing strong and stoic, clinging to life as their roots mingle with the rubble. Each visit to these sites presents something new, as the land is constantly in state of flux. This work observes the landscape in its transient state, at a stage when it would normally be overlooked, searching for a beauty in the banality.
‘Open space has no trodden paths and signposts.
It has no fixed patterns of established human meaning;
It is like a blank sheet on which meaning may be imposed.
Enclose and humanised, space is place.
Yi Fu Tuan
