Hadrian's Wall
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introduction
In 2007, Australian artist, Christine Porter, travelled to England and Scotland as the University of Southern Queensland’s McGregor Fellow. The trip included being a visiting artist-in-residence at a small art school in the Midlands, gallery and artist visits, as well as the opportunity to create new work about her experiences. Anticipating the landscape to be the point of difference between here and there, she walked Hadrian’s Wall from one side of the country to the other, to experience quite literally the breadth of it. What she found though, was not as much landscape as farmland. Her walk became inevitably a meditation on both Roman and British colonization (and from that: those twin ideas of exile and belonging). This led her to consider the patterns of repeated emigration within her own family that had placed her, suddenly, where her ancestors had been re-placed from. Three bodies of work evolved from this cross country walk that took her from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the east to the Solway Firth on the west, through country that formed a natural border between north and south: that had, in its time been not so much a demarcation line as a grey area of tribal and colonial strife.
the Hadrian's wall suites - summary
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| 2007 walking the Roman wall |
2008 the Hadrian's wall walk |
2010 beyond the wall |
| Solar plate etchings and small watercolour drawings shown at the Tooowoomba Regional Art Gallery January 2008 in the exhibition I couldn't see the landscape for the fields that become a discussion, in that context, of the ways belonging can be experienced and articlulated. | The same post-card sized solar-plate etchings, printed and installed to describe how public images impact on the travellers' experience as a stranger in a familiar land. Exhibited at Barratt Galleries as part of the narrative exhibition in 2010. |
In 2010, whilst revisiting the work in the context of the narrative exhibition and writing this website; with the world's interest piqued with the illumination of the wall in March of that year, Christine found herself looking again at the wall and what is implied by such a stong image in such a history saturated place. youtube video of the lighting of the wall in 2010. |
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WALKING THE ROMAN WALL, 2007
artist statement
Three series of work formedpart of the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery exhibition I couldn't see the landscape for the fields in January 2008. Artwork included sheep paintings (the British breeds series) about colonisation, the lost gloves paintings that Christine used as a metaphor for emigration and this series of mixed media pieces of her experiences walking the Roman Wall - articulating the way she felt herself connect to the landscape that was not her birthplace but certainly part of her homeland. She writes:
The Hadrian's wall pieces - that include the watercolour drawings of those objects found along the route - are about the way that I began to claim the countryside that I was walking over and the country I was a visitor in, as my own. Its annexation achieved, mile by purposeful mile, with Nikon and journal: memory and memento. How by taking the souvenired public views of the landscape and personalising them: by superimposing those views with the experience of being in them, I colonised, as effectively as those two thousand year old foot-soldiers had. A place that for all intents and purposes was a foreign land - for all its family-arity.
Christine Porter 2008
where to see this artwork
This work, which was exhibited in Christine's solo exhibition at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery in January 2008, is now at her studio/gallery in Lismore (by appointment, 02 66225733). Contact us for prices or to buy an etching from this series.
Work from this series cannot be included in the narrative project.
the artwork
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Day one: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (Wallsend) to Heddon-on-the-wall |
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Day two: Heddon-on-the-wall to Chollerford available |
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Day three: Chollerford to Once-Brewed available |
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Day four: Once-Brewed to Gilsland |
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Day five: Gilsland to Walton available |
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Day six: Walton to Carlisle available |
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Day seven: Carlisle to Bowness-on-Solway private collection |
installation view: Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery I couldn't see the landscape for the fields January 2008
copyright reminder
This note is a reminder that copyright of all content on this website is owned by the artist. This means that copying and transmitting individual images in any form is prohibited by law. If you see an image and would like it in a larger format please contact us. If you see any of these images used innapropriately elsewhere, please let us know.
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go to summary
go to walking the Roman Wall
go to the Hadrian's wall walk
go to beyond the wall
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THE HADRIAN'S WALL WALK, 2008
artist statement
The Hadrian’s wall walk was exhibited for the first time as part of the narrative exhibition in March 2010 at Barratt Galleries, Alstonville. It uses the same etched images that were part of the walking the Roman wall suite. It too speaks of the souvenired public views of that landscape - each of the seven images in these postcard sized works representing a different day from the artist’s walk. She writes:
The postcard format was chosen so that the viewer can be in little doubt that I am a visitor. I see the commercially produced, tourist postcards presenting an idealized view of a particular place: the reverse with just enough space for note, not novel - communicating in that small space an abbreviated intimacy. I want my postcard size artworks to reference the experience of the captured, perfect, moment as I journey across a landscape I can never really belong in. The postcard reinforces the impersonal nature of the publicly owned image, but at the same time becoming a personal record, like a diary. Like any edited re-presented experience not necessarily completely the truth.
Christine Porter , 2010
where to see, or buy this artwork
This work, which was exhibited in Christine's solo exhibition narrative at Barratt Galleries, Alstonville in March 2010, is now available from her studio/gallery in Lismore (by appointment, 02 66225733). Contact us for prices or to buy an etching from this series.
Work from this series may be included in the narrative project.
the artwork
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The Hadrian's Wall Walk I |
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The Hadrian's Wall Walk II |
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The Hadrian's Wall Walk III |
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The Hadrian's Wall Walk IV |
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The Hadrian's Wall Walk V |
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The Hadrian's Wall Walk VI |
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The Hadrian's Wall Walk VII |
installation view: Barratt Galleries narrative, 2010
copyright reminder
This note is a reminder that copyright of all content on this website is owned by the artist. This means that copying and transmitting individual images in any form is prohibited by law. If you see an image and would like it in a larger format please contact us. If you see any of these images used innapropriately elsewhere, please let us know.
top
go to summary
go to walking the Roman Wall
go to the Hadrian's wall walk
go to beyond the wall
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BEYOND THE WALL, 2010
artist statement
When is a wall not a wall? If a gate or a hole is part of the wall, either by design or accident, or if it stops that wall being the barrier is it still a wall? If it's not even there any more, except in the most archeological way can it still be called a wall ?
While I was on the walk one of the places I stayed at had a book written in the 1920's. It described the Romans as the saviours of the heathens and the bringers of democracy to this lawless land. Historically the Scots weren't one nation at that time, and the Romans were certainly never ones for democratic rule so I'd say that Hadrian's Wall is one of those symbols that is the repository of the history of its time. Interesting to note that news reports from 2010 acknowledge publicly the role of the wall as a tax collecting device - I wonder how this 1000 year old pile of masonry will reflect the next generation's outlook on the world at the end of its second millenium.
Christine Porter 2010
where to see, or buy this artwork
This work which has not been exhibited anywhere, is available only at Christine's studio/gallery in Lismore (by appointment, 02 66225733). Contact us for prices or to buy an etching from this series.
Work from this series may be included in the narrative project.
the artwork
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gate available |
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sheep gate |
copyright reminder
This note is a reminder that copyright of all content on this website is owned by the artist. This means that copying and transmitting individual images in any form is prohibited by law. If you see an image and would like it in a larger format please contact us. If you see any of these images used inappropriately elsewhere, please let us know.
top
go to summary
go to walking the Roman Wall
go to the Hadrian's wall walk
go to beyond the wall
artist statement
When is a wall not a wall? When does a wall stop acting as a wall? If a gate or a hole is part of the wall, either by design or accident, or if it stops that wall being the barrier is it still a wall? If it's not even there any more , except in the most archeological way should it still be called a wall ?
Popular theory about Hadrian's Wall when i was growing up described it fondly as the northern barrier to keep "those terrible warring uncivilised Scots out" . While i was on the walk one of the places I stayed at had a book written in the 1920's . It described the Romans as the saviours of the heathans and the bringers of democracy to this lawless land. Seeing as historically the Scots weren't one nation at that time, and the Romans were certainly never one for democratic rule , I'd say that the Hadrian's Wall is one of those symbols that is the repository of the history of its time. Interesting to note that news reports from 2010 acknowledges publically the role of the wall as a tax collecting device - I wonder how this 1000 year old pile of masonry will reflect the next generation's outlook on the world.
Christine Porter 2010
the artwork
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gate available |
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sheep gate |