22. Ways of Being Seen

Description: Ways of being seen explores landscapes held in tension by a 100ft monument in the Scottish Northeast Highlands. The monument to the First Duke of Sutherland commemorates a man who presided over one of the most contested Highland Clearances of the nineteenth century. During this time populations were forcibly displaced to make way for sheep farming and new infrastructures were inscribed across the landscape.

Ways of being seen unpacks traditions of landscape that focus on views from fixed and singular positions to consider the visual presence of the monument. Working across mappings, historic postcards, and model making, the research explores intersecting narratives of settlement and displacement, ownership and labour, transportation and tourism, materiality and monumentality.

Ways of being seen is an ongoing investigation through modelling, mapping, and historic postcards. It was exhibited in The Landscapists Exhibition in London’s Stephen Lawrence Gallery in 2021.

Date:
2020 – ongoing
Credits:
Project Studio (Ed Wall, Alexis Liu, and Emma Colthurst)
Robbie Munn