The Land of Concealment

The Land of Concealment contends with ownership, occupation, and desire, in particular the ways idyllic landscapes of 'here' are implicated in the occupation of landscapes 'elsewhere'. The work references a number of stories wherein women's bodies are used as ciphers for attempting some kind of violent, futile return to innocence.

A text, Concerning Occupation in the Land of Concealment, accompanies the sculptural painting.

The text was produced after close readings of two novels: Randolph Stow’s Girl Green as Elderflower (1980), a frame novel in which English folklore merges with fever dreams and reality; and in which the alluring and destructive figure of a “green girl” brings forth an erotic and ultimately unfulfilled emancipation from the psychic terror of colonial violence. And, Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail (2020), a novel in two parts - the first an unflinching account of the violent assault and murder of a young girl in Palestine in 1949; and the second a contemporary Palestinian woman’s search for evidence of the crime within Israeli occupied landscapes.

The text Concerning Occupation in the Land of Concealment is an attempt to comprehend the act of image-making in relation to these themes, an ethical questioning of representation and distancing, and a critical positioning against the romanticism of the English landscape.

This project came after an invitation to respond to the theme of The Green Man, considered an important folkloric figure representing nature and renewal within English myth and Medieval legend. I was disinterested in considering the cultural significance or the nostalgic reverence of the green man, and instead was inclined towards a critical investigation into notions of Englishness, rural innocence, and authenticity, as well as ownership, power, occupation, and - as ever - forms of violence yet to be fully reckoned with.