Mandy Williams, Disrupted Landscapes
Image by Mandy Williams
I saw your work on the online Graduate showcase and found it really engaging! The video piece you made is beautifully done. What inspired you to use the English countryside as the basis for this series?
Thank you, Tom. In the past I have produced several photographic series about the sea and the English countryside. At LCC I wanted to create a video that would reflect my background as a landscape artist, that would also reflect my interest in politics. In the video I’m exploring the exclusionary politics of England through the metaphor of landscape. It’s a re-appraisal of my home country since the EU referendum. Specifically since witnessing increasing hostility towards people perceived as outsiders.
I had initially interviewed EU nationals living in the UK, coastal workers and volunteers with the idea of including their testimonies in the video over footage of the landscape and sea. Eventually the video became more experimental and reflective than documentary. I decided to write a narration that would reflect the stories that I had heard but would also be a more personal work about England. In this context, it made sense for me to recite the narration. In the video I’m using the colours of the landscape and sea - green and blue - and their associated meanings – to thread different sections of the commentary and reflect layers of the hostile environment. A traditional desire path shown in normal colour slowly transforms through increasingly intense coloration. Through metaphor, the beauty of the landscape is revealed and then reversed.
The soundtrack was particularly important – many layers of sound were used to surround the narration, including slowed down footage from political marches, different sound effects and location sound. The video begins and ends with my own reflections on England as someone who lived overseas and felt nostalgic about the country from a distance, and who now, having returned here, experiences a sense of dislocation.
The Disrupted Landscapes use Kent coastal landscapes as their starting point. In the sequence of images, the photographs show a progression from rupture to deformation as a metaphor for increasing societal divisions. In some images, the coastal landscapes are merged with alien geographies that I’ve accessed from NASA. These landforms visually resemble elements of our own landscape – specifically coastal areas - while being unable to support human life. I’m using these landforms to represent a landscape that has become alienated and which causes harm, and placed borders across these disarticulated landscapes. By working in black and white I was able to merge the geographies more fluidly and to unify the sequence. The borders are an intrinsic part of the territories and it made sense for them to be black within the monochrome images.
What challenges did you face while putting this series together? How did Covid restrict you? Did it restrict you?
Covid meant that I was unable to travel to the coast to gather footage for my video, but I had filmed regularly between October 2019 – March 2020 so was able to use those visuals. I changed the focus of the video after lockdown, but this was an unrelated development. Psychologically it affected me at the beginning, the uncertainty and the switch from studying on site to online.
Image by Mandy Williams
Can you summarise your time at LCC in 10 words or less?
Intense, challenging, exciting, fulfilling.
For anyone thinking of doing MA Photography at LCC, what advice would you give them?
Be flexible and be prepared to adapt your ideas and ways of working. Enjoy your project and challenge your preconceptions. Create a support system with like-minded cohorts.
QUICK FIRE
Night out or night in?
In during COVID, but in normal circumstances night out.
What’s your favourite place to visit in your hometown?
Anywhere along the River Thames.
What’s your favourite gallery in London?
Tate Modern followed closely by the Barbican.
Roughly how many times have you sworn this year?
It’s early into the year – probably 500 times.
If you could change one thing about the art world, what would it be?
That the artist’s image and marketability is so important.
And finally, what’s next? Any new projects? Events? Exhibitions? In the works? (that you’re allowed to talk about 😉)
I want to continue working on the Disrupted Landscapes series with the idea of eventually creating a book, as well as extending the imagery into different media. I also have a new video project in mind which again explores English politics and place and am currently trying to raise funding.