RAWNIE PARSONS-LOCK

AN ENORMITY THAT HAS NO WORDS

Mixed media: Linnen, Wood, pen en string (2022)

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This project started with my intention to collaborate with nature. In a world where we all live so far form nature, I wanted to start a collaboration with it. I decided to work with the wind, a form of nature that humans cannot literally grasp and make our own. I thought this would be one of the purest forms of nature and I wished to be an equal in the making of an artwork with the wind.

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The collaboration went well until one day I was testing my concept on the beach in Zeeland. In the background I saw the Delta Works and this got me thinking. My naive collaboration with the wind has taken place at a location where the movement of the wind has been determined by mankind. I then realised that the landscape and climate determine how the wind moves and my collaboration with nature was naïve. I wanted to communicate this frustration and message to others through my work.

 

The final wind drawings have been made at locations in the Netherlands where people have had a major influence on the landscape. Diemerzeedijk, Volgermeer polder and Kortenhoefs polder are all former landfills for household waste and chemical waste. All these places have been sealed and then decorated with a beautiful landscape. These places resemble how humans interact with the world. We hide our problems and then ignore or forget about them. 

 

The wind drawings symbolize an impossible collaboration with nature. A struggle to want to connect with something that is fading away or that might already have disappeared. With these works I wish to start a conversation as to whether it is still possible to work with nature, what nature is in this day and age and if it is too late to change our ways.

 

In all elements of this project, you can see the struggle to want to collaborate with nature. Not only the collaboration between artist and wind but also in the materials that have been used to make the ‘wind catcher’ and drawings. For example, all materials (except for the pen) that have been used are biodegradable, however they all show signs of have being made in factories.