[PDF] Edgeland

[Lutero Chaloux]

Local councils commonly require far lower standards of design for new buildings in the interface than they do elsewhere: effectively edgelands have become the lowest grade of landscape in UK landscape conservation terms. . . . We do not expect the hypermarkets or the giant factory sheds of the edgelands to blend in with the local vernacular architecture, and where any tree planting is stipulated by councils as landscaping it is usually only the barest minimum.

Edgeland spaces are spaces that occupy a certain ambiguity. They are spaces that were not built for particular purpose nor used in easily identifiable ways. They are generally places at the periphery, or in between other more definable areas. Therefore we are not generally aware of them. The transience or flux of these kinds of places is interesting to me. In some ways, I see the photographic medium as perfect vehicle for exploring this kind of space. The spaces themselves are elusive and fleeting and photography, especially digital photography, is suggestive of this immateriality or fluidity of information.

[PDF] Edgeland

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2. Is edgeland space a place? Clearly edgeland spaces exist as we can find these locations through GPS coordinates; or for example, you could tell someone how to find a prior site you photographed. But does the human psyche treat these spaces differently, or in a manner that might challenge traditional concepts of place?

4. The photographic medium always produces output that is some part objective and subjective. With this in mind, do you approach the documentation of edgeland space with a more objective or subjective intent? Do you wanting viewers of your work to see these spaces for what they are, or something different, or maybe a combination of both perspectives?

One of the things that I love about photography is that it can be a continual paradox. On the one hand it can appear to present direct information. It can appear to be objective. However, photographs are never objective. They are always an interpretation, sometimes a fiction, and sometimes a complete fabrication. For me, it is the interesting line right in the middle that is compelling. When a photograph simultaneously, provides descriptive qualities that alludes to objective information, and also provides open space for interpretation and suggestion, it is most intriguing! So, I do want viewers to see the spaces both for what they are AND I want them to come away with questions, with discomfort, and with a powerful sense of poetic interpretation.

5. The English poets Farley and Symmons Roberts claim that the edgelands are interesting spaces because they cannot be pinned down. Do you think that these areas of our landscape remain fluid and dynamic or are they inherently more static and idle in nature, why?

I see edgeland spaces as fluid and ever-changing spaces. They might appear to be static, because often they are not obviously occupied and they are not clearly marked by traditional boundaries. It is this fluidity that I am particularly interested in. I often return to sites over and over, not only to remake photographs, but also to see the landscape as it changes with time and with weather and with season. I am interested in how the landscape shifts in response to both natural and man-made events. That nature and the literal shape of the land have a certain power and resilient capacity is strangely comforting. The concept that nature will evolve and change, often in spite of our interventions is a powerful fact.

I sometimes hesitate to put this idea out there because it is complicated. I firmly believe we humans have a deep responsibility to take care of the environment and to be held accountable for our activities; the environment has surely been affected by our irresponsible or oblivious decisions. However, that nature will survive and evolve in spite of us humans is hopeful.

I frequently drive by a particular place that makes me think about this very question. Are there productive uses for those spaces that exist by happenstance? What about the spaces that are left over when the road is built and there is that awkward zone in-between the highway and the overpass? The spot I mention, is a very narrow strip of land that has been turned into an urban garden. This garden is extremely lush and productive and exists on a patch of land that was previously a dead zone. At one point, this garden was an edgeland space right in the middle of the city. Yet, for a time it was totally overlooked, a leftover piece of land that seemed to have been an afterthought. The proactive choice to use this space for a productive vegetable garden is beautiful!

The shifting aspect of edgeland space makes its very definition one that stays open ended and somewhat undefined. So, as this beautiful urban garden is now a place; meaning it has activity, it has purpose, it has usage and we are aware of it as a marked space, I suppose it loses its edgeland definition. It is the ever-changing transitory nature, or the seemingly idle condition that defines an edgeland space. But, we see that edgeland space can evolve into a productive space, and certainly productive places can transition into edgeland spaces.

7. Are edgelands a mere product of the growth of modern urban environments or do you think that they exist as some manifestation of the unknown, unexplored, or unfamiliar? Thus, do you think a concept similar to edgeland space existed for the 18th century farmer?

I think there is something closely related to the idea of the unknown or unfamiliar or unexplored. The edgelands to me are intriguing kinds of spaces because of their relationship to uncharted territory. It is the paradoxical relationship between the familiar kinds of places and familiar objects coupled with all the things that have been left behind that creates a tension.. The specific clues that reveal activity that once occupied the space, in contrast to the open ended and undefined aspect of these places creates a tension. What we think we know of a place is simultaneously unknowable.

8. What do you think about the idea of edgeland space existing as a wildlife corridor? Evidence suggests that there can be a lot of biodiversity in unmanaged spaces like edgeland areas. Do you think that edgeland spaces can exist as a place of refuge for flora/fauna and wildlife?

The wilderness is much closer than you think. Passed through, negotiated, unnamed, unacknowledged: the edgelands - those familiar yet ignored spaces which are neither city nor countryside - have become the great wild places on our doorsteps.

In the same way the Romantic writers taught us to look at hills, lakes and rivers, poets Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts write about mobile masts and gravel pits, business parks and landfill sites, taking the reader on a journey to marvel at these richly mysterious, forgotten regions in our midst.

Edgelands forms a critique of what we value as 'wild', and allows our allotments, railways, motorways, wasteland and water a presence in the world, and a strange beauty all of their own.

To change things up I have highlighted relevant sections as I deemed them useful to make my points. The assignment seems to be going in the direction of challenging the conceptions of edgelands in England with those I have experience in China. The article tries to promote the edge lands and push more people to explore these areas and learn from their existance. There are many simularities with the edge lands but to presume for example children like to explore the edge lands of China would be completely false.

Over the past three days I have been attending a short writing course at Manchester Metropolitan University on the subject of place writing. The course has been excellent and encouraged me to start writing again, as well as consolidated some ideas surrounding my practice.

Tucked under the overhead road, the world around me melts away, the sound of the busy streets and cars becomes muffled, except for the noise of a game of football going on in one of the subterranean five a side pitches that have become a staple of our urban infrastructure.

The stones directly under the overpass are stained in huge grey circles, one, two. Looking up I see the reason, stalactites hang from the underside of the concrete, slowly dripping onto the floor below, the limestone, leaching out of the damaged concrete.

This is an area I know from previous research, the site of the odd motorway exit to nowhere, built to a point and then stopped meters into the air. Like so much of our concrete cities, a reminder of a future, promised, that never came.

The last time the tour was on English soil was 2007 when it past through Chatham in the Thames Gateway for stage 1. At the time my future wife, studying for her MA, lived in a small Victorian terrace, near the station and close to the route. She was lucky enough to see it pass at the bottom of the hill below UCA Rochester (technically Chatham), her recollection of it is about 30 secs of bikes zooming past.

I started by revisiting sites that I first came across in 2012 during my first recce visit. That time I stayed with my now pregnant wife in an Ibis where she purposely asked for a room overlooking the motorway and QE2 Crossing. It was the same hotel that Ian Sinclair visited while working on the film version of London Orbital by Chris Petitt.

The choice of such an isolated and inconvenient site has never been explained, and there was apparently no human habitation within 800 metres but the road to an ancient ferry passed close by and some believe it on the route of pilgrimage to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket. Pilgrims were said to either cross the Thames by boat, or at low tide it was then possible to walk across, using a ford which used to exist before the river was dredged in modern times to allow it to be used as a shipping canal.

Swanscombe Marsh, Diamond Geezer [flickr] (2014)In 2006 a base jumper died jumping from the opposite pylon, when his parachute failed to open, The Swanscombe pylon, said to be tallest in Britain, is popular with base-jumpers because of its height and two platforms at 300ft and 670ft.

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