getcarta

"Now this is the map of the district, and by the markings you can see where I hope to find what I seek..."
- Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders, or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold, Victor Appleton, 1917

GET CARTA brings together eight contemporary artists linked by their use of mapping in their varied practices concerned with social, political and cultural structures. However, rather than simply present artists who use the form, or the 'look' of the map, GET CARTA aims more specifically to investigate the artists' use of, or reliance on, explorations carried out previously by others.

Cally Trench explores her local community by using the traditional convention of the aerial view, prepared by carrying out an investigation of her immediate area at ground level, however it is the areas she is denied access to that are the focus of this work, a network of local privacies. Stephen Walter's mapping of Liverpool, a place previously unknown to him, was made by speaking to the city's inhabitants: his graphite mapping of the city filled with a density of public and personal stories. Claire Brewster's art transforms the ordinary boundaries of nature and territory. Animal and plant life is remodelled in cut-up maps that have a simple fragility, the filigree paper cuts enabling a setting free of nature normally locked into distinct habitats. Vanessa Rolf uses embroidery on reclaimed fabrics to record notional voyages in the lonely wastes of Siberia, and the expanse of the arctic circle: specifically Norvik, one of the most northerly towns on the planet. Stephen Harwood revisits his home county via google street-view, which has now ventured out of the big cities into semi-rural England, for a series of drawings of remembered places from his childhood and adolescence. Californian artist Karen Ay's lightbox sculptures present images that originate from cracks in the pavements of her adopted home of East London, which are transformed into glowing satellite images, our ordinary surroundings imagined from space. Emma J Williams' Red Drawings are arterial roads, in fleshy pinks and reds, bleeding stained landscapes, that remind us of the lifeblood of our towns and cities, a theme continued in Susan Stockwell's wall mounted artery sculptures, an international mesh of named streets in far-flung countries.

Whether such mapping belongs more to the world of fiction than fact - an artistic invention rather than a Cartographer's presentation of data - or is based on an atlas, globe or the street plan of a city or transport system, such material seems to provide a necessary framework for these artists in navigating their chosen locales as they (re)create them. The reliance may be slight or barely perceptible, a mere reference or starting point, or may be so strong and persuasive as to inhabit the form of the artist's investigation entirely. It may even provide some sort of strength of purpose.

GET CARTA aims to explore how these past investigations are claimed by these artists, enabling something new to be said.

Websites artists
Karen Ay
Claire Brewster
Stephen Harwood
Vanessa Rolf
Susan Stockwell
Cally Trench
Stephen Walter
Emma J Williams

Article in Hackney Citizen by Annie Ridout

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