Transcendance
My practice is concerned with Grand Narratives, the ideological systems that influence the way we live our lives but are accepted as the natural order of things. My current practice is concerned with the phenomenon of place. What constitutes a place, what separates place and space, how do places shape our identity. Recently I have filmed a journey from Stoke through Birmingham to London. Recording the Landscape from the rural through the semi industrial to the Metropolis. At any point do you know where you are? Do you experience a feeling of place as you watch the landscape unfold.? What are the pre-conceptions associated with places and what values do these have? I plan to continue to film a series of journeys via various transport, as well as films of empty places and animations of places that have long since disappeared in an attempt to ask if we ever really know where we are. I hope to bring attention to local, national and cultural value systems that have become naturalised and by which we judge others. In the past my work has involved looking at religious belief systems, myths and fairytales and local customs and histories. My work has included constructing a fairytale grotto on a housing estate, building a 25 foot church within a studio, and holding a religious karaoke concert within a gallery. I have worked with animation, sound, installation, video projection, drawing and painting in projects that have included building a church out of gathered sticks that will continue to grow and provide sanctuary to birds and animals, and staging a fierce argument between God and Steven Hawking about the origins of the Universe.
Roberts Matt
