Exhibited as part of ‘Paradigms: an exhibition of contemporary art from Aberdeen and Plymouth’, Look Again Project Space, Aberdeen, 2021. Please contact artist for viewing information.

‘Intangible Landscapes’ is part a body of work created in response to an environmental arts placement which involved mapping firebreak trails in the mountains of Cyprus. The placement was based in Pano Lefkara, a village famed for its delicate lacework. Passed on from mother to daughter, Lefkara Lace is an art practiced exclusively by women and is said to have saved the area from economic devastation. Yet, due to a level of exploitation from the tourism industry and the migration of younger generations, lacemaking is becoming an increasingly unsustainable practice.

Through a combination of accompanying fictional text and moving image, ‘Intangible Landscapes’ considers themes of both tangible and intangible losses within the region; from loss of land due to wildfires to loss of cultural knowledge and traditional skills. Looking to the voices of women in the area, the work explores the push and pull between internal and external landscapes- the stories that are on display in heritage museums and those that are formed by lived experience.

These stories hold a particular tension within an unforgiving landscape of vast and barren firebreak trails, which weave through the mountains as though they had been stitched into the land by the lacemakers themselves. ‘Intangible Landscapes’ looks to nurture an intimacy between body, technology and land whilst questioning how to preserve the intangible.

Voices: Lulla, Panayiota & Rita

With thanks to 'Grampus Heritage and Training' & Martin David Clark