That Which Flows From This, 2019
 
This publication brings together images and texts from Jennie Savage's research during a self-appointed artist-in-residence in the English village she grew up in. For one month in Summer 2018, she undertook an exploratory journey into a place she describes as knowing 'intimately, but also not at all.' As Savage's research unfolded, she sent Edgework regular updates which were posted on our Instagram feed under the hashtag #EdgeworkFieldNotes.
 
Savage writes: 'During this residency, I undertook a psycho-geographic approach, walking each day, photographing and talking to people about the village. I came to understand that the contradiction in my own experience was a response to the crushing banality of the post-war development of the village, where fields of houses are tacked on to its edges creating an ever-sprawling uniformity of design and scale. These developments amount to fields of characterless housing, commodities; rationalised economic units that are not built for legacy, longevity, and community but are simply the result of cause and effect, supply meeting demand. Capitalism in its most naked form.
 
It became clear to me that not only is this housing impoverished in terms of design and therefore its contribution to the culture of the village, it is also a symptom of a changing post-war society. A historic move away from ‘community’ towards ‘independence’ – the suggestion that we must all be able to function alone or in nuclear family units.
 
These houses also speak of things that we have lost including a connection to the deeper rhythms of the landscape. A distance has grown between ‘the land’ and us, so that we have become viewers of ‘nature’ rather than part of its complex ecologies.'
 
38 pages
Paperback
Colour
Published by Jennie Savage
 
£12.50 (Free UK P&P)
 
See Jennie Savage's project That Which Flows From This for #EdgeworkFiedNotes on Instagram