CuratorSpace Artist Bursary #17: Erika Cann

Erika Cann's work investigates place through accounts and narrative, both historical and contemporary, within the guides and maps of an area. She navigates the environment through climbing - pushing, pulling, jamming and squeezing her way up and through time, geologies and accumulated narratives. The work takes the form of photography, film, and printmaking, which is often imbued with language.

"For my project, I'm exploring how printmaking (as an expanded, interdisciplinary artform) might provide tactile, process-based narrative to concepts of deep-time, geology and climate change. As these ideas are often hard to visualise, or over timescales that are beyond human experience, I want to find ways of communicating these concepts to a broader public and make the terms accessible beyond scientific thinking. Understanding geology and deep time in the context of climate change is important in understanding how we are impacting not only the future flora and fauna above the surface, but also the geology and bedrock underground.

By using varied processes and techniques of printmaking, I'm exploring how I can simulate geological formation - carving, squeezing and layering shapes and forms that represent the structures within the rock. I'm investigating materials in relationship to future fossils of the Anthropocene - how our actions and material objects will directly affect the geological record.

Currently I'm working in two site-specific locations; Dartmoor National Park, and the Jurassic Coast. I hope to continue expanding my body of work in both locations to explore different views deep time and climate change. In the future I hope to explore more complex printmaking processes, such as screen printing and lithography, and also explore expanded ideas of printmaking, such as Anthotype photography and printmaking as installation and sculpture. I also hope to investigate ways of sharing my work through outdoor exhibitions in the landscape, to contextualise the work, immerse visitors in the environment, and reduce barriers to accessing art."

You can see more of Erika's work at www.erikacann.com and Instagram.

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