Touching time by John Sunderland
I have for long time now been fascinated with the processes of both art and archaeology, of how the crafts of both disciplines require a degree of intuition, of knowing and yet not quite knowing where one is going and feeling a path through the materials. Whether this is excavating a feature through the touch of a trowel, or developing a drawing through the connection between eye, hand, and pencil, both require a degree of sensitivity to surfaces and substances.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to investigate this further at Beaubec, to be able to combine these practices by making drawings using archaeological soils retrieved from the site as they are excavated in combination with archaeological drawing techniques. I use the drafting paper (used for scale drawing in archaeology) and make pigments from soils by adding water and griding them in a pestle and mortar. I apply this to my drawing and photograph each stage, watching and recording the processes of drying and sometimes wetting (in rain). Soil in this context becomes unstable, cracking and falling as it dries going from dark to light and back to dark again. The environment impacts on the works and the photographs still this change. The outcomes of this work will be the photography, although I am interested in how these works can be made stable, or when they become stable, how will they look?
There are other questions arising from this process and other practices that I’m working on whilst I also excavate in this immersive experience of creating within an archaeological excavation, a process of touching time. I will be sharing my thoughts and some results over the next three weeks as we excavate the site.
Beaubec Excavations 