| Project title | Transcending Time |
| Location | European Land Art Festival, Dunbar, Scotland |
| Date | 18th – 20th July 2025 |
Artist Statement
My art practice is rooted in a phenomenological exploration of everyday surroundings, engaging with the interplay between nature and human presence through direct sensory experience. By assembling found objects and materials from a site, I seek to explore how we encounter, interpret, and internalise our environment. These interventions, shaped by ecological and temporal forces, reveal the often-unnoticed rhythms of decay, transformation, and renewal, fostering an embodied awareness of place.
Through land art and ecological interventions, I aim to heighten the viewer’s lived experience of time, materiality, and natural processes. The work does not simply depict environmental change but invites participation in it, encouraging a heightened attentiveness to the transient and shifting nature of landscapes. The tactile and visual qualities of found objects – weathered stones, eroded glass, organic remnants, become conduits for a deeper engagement with the material world. By tracing the marks of erosion, decay, and persistence, my practice invites reflection on our entanglement with the environment. It seeks to cultivate a relational understanding, where human and non-human elements are interwoven in a continuous exchange – prompting a reconsideration of sustainability and ecological responsibility.
Contextual Statement
The work aimed to create a space where people could feel the presence of geological memory while remaining grounded in the present moment. Dunbar’s unique geology, especially its red sandstone cliffs, provided both the materials and the conceptual foundation for the work. The event took place at the European Land Art Festival in Dunbar, Scotland from the 18th to 20th July). The work was sited on a beach and rocky coastline shaped 380 million years by tectonic shifts and erosion. Through a series of sensory installations, I invited people to experience the landscape not just visually, but through touch, movement, and quiet observation.
My approach was guided by phenomenology, particularly focussed on lived experience and sensory perception. Rather than starting with a fixed idea, I allowed time to immerse myself in the landscape, and that shaped the work. I walked the beach, touched the rocks, and gathered natural debris like seaweed and shells, exploring deep time and our entangled presence within ecological systems. These materials became collaborators in the artwork. Public interaction was central – visitors were invited to move through the space, touch the materials, and reflect on the passage of time. I see the land not as a passive setting, but as a living archive.
I also created three ceramic pieces that echoed the colours and textures of Dunbar’s coastline. These included sea-glass and oxide washes to reflect the area’s erosional history. I used techniques to mimic natural processes such as sedimentation and weathering. The ceramic works were placed directly in the landscape, allowing them to blend with and respond to their surroundings.
I also created a pocket sized Zine to hand out as part of my engagement with the site. My intention was to explore the concept of site resonance and to reflect on the geological significance of the area. Within the Zine I documented the making of my ceramics, and gave insights about the special geology around Dunbar’s Coastline. The paper stock nods to the red sandstone along the coast, an artefact that I hope will be carried, opened, read and re-read.
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