Artists research- Janet Hodsgon...

JANET HODSGON


Janet Hodsgon is an artist with an interest in time and history, creating installations and ‘inscribing’ places inspired by archeological drawings.

She is interested in archeology, in the removal of objects in a site,  but mostly in the way DRAW TIME,  in particular the stratigraphic drawings and diagrams and how they provide a visual way of seeing time, such as the Harris Matrix calendar which allows archeologists to see the stratigraphic sequences of complex sites...

Stratigraphy

Harris Matrix calendar

Her work

THE PITS- sandblasted engraved drawings into the stones in Whitefriars, exact stratigraphic copies of the site…

HISTORY LESSONS–video recording the fictional restaging of everyday life of the building in its previous incarnation as a Victorian school. Her videos in terms of history have 'evolved into an investigation of relationships that are as mush about location  and dislocation, as they are about what was, what is and what might be’... sounds eerie! 

Other interesting points from a small essay I found (SEEING TIME/WRITING PLACE)

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      -‘calendars and clocks faces are two ways in which we can see absolute time, for TIME has no physical reality, but is inherent in most things, it must be translated to a diagrammatic form to be understood as sequence or schedule’ – so stratigraphic diagrams fit into this.

- MATRIX- the word matrix was used often…definition- an environment or materials in which something develops.

-Architectural  drawings are representations of spaces., in a professional sense, but this could be transferred into more conceptual ideas…

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The main point which I found interesting was how she believes working in sites or historical places, reinscribes the past into that place provides a way of seeing time. Themes of place, site, history and time all appear, all very interesting to me, and definitely ideas I am going to experiment with over the summer...