Rehill, Nicole

This paper outlines an emerging methodology that links separate art projects made in multiple locations. Accumulation (of both materials and experiences over time) combined with a process of interruption serve as a common line of enquiry that reflects both my past and present situations as a temporary resident in a foreign country. Through a psycho-geographical and phenomenological lens the work uses the experience of movement through a landscape (natural or urban) as a site where the visual and haptic sensory information imprints itself in the mind. Mapping, tracking and recording these experiences points towards a broader engagement with ideas about attachment to places that are not yet home. My work utilizes the methods of layering, collage and assemblage as a means to visualize and contrast our complicated experiences of time that cross borders and continents in a highly mobile and technological society. I ask what can be learned by questioning our connections to place and how do these experiences contribute to our sense of belonging? How do we carry these experiences with us to create continuity between places, past, present and future? Filtered through the ambiguity of memory I build upon patterns of association, trusting in intuitive yet controlled responses where the work becomes a site to explore our permanent and temporary relationships to place.