OCA Creative Arts: Student Story, Tim Harbridge

Exploration of Place: A Stage 1 Student journey

Studying BA (Hons) Creative Arts Unit 1.1 I wrote the following paragraph about ‘Place’. I have been pleased to re-visit these ideas throughout Stage 1 units to reconsider the notion of defining a place and, in doing so, changing its fundamental nature and purpose.

“Place’ is where things can happen…and pretty much anything can happen in a place – the only restrictive factors are environmental. As soon as you define a place, and you can do that anywhere and in any way, you charge it up somehow…you create a stage or arena for things to happen in. I would argue a canvas is a place…or a piece of paper just as much as a patch of ground.“

As I moved through Unit 1.2 I started to gain an understanding that environment, place, location and space actually define who we are as people. With these terms we describe the elements that encompass our existence…and our existence is composed of all our experiences in life – from the mundane to the extraordinary, from the practical to the spiritual.

But these simply cannot exist without an interaction with environment, place, location and space. I see them as Russian Dolls…but with each of us at their very centre.

My work submitted for assessment at the end of Unit 1.2 considered the decline of my local high street and posited that when we lose the identity of our high street we actually lose our identity as a community. As part of that assessment presentation and to illustrate the idea, I created a time lapse video of a cyanotype of my recently closed local Post Office in the process of its disappearance.

A local high street consists of the things we need or want as a group of people and it is there to service our specific needs. So, with the homogenisation of existing high streets and the closure of so many independent shops, this ‘mirror’ can no longer reflect its community…or, conversely, perhaps it does and, actually, it is we who are becoming homogenised and the reflection is accurate.

The Low Street Tim 1.2

It was during that research and work that I came to realise the profound effect that place and location have on who we are, how we live, work, socialise and who we can become. We tend to move through these spaces oblivious to them and their effect upon us. So how do we become more aware of our spaces…more present in them? Interact with them in a meaningful way, change them and, in return, allow them to change us?

When I was considering the word ‘environment’ at the start of 1.3 I was reminded of how so many of us Brightonians seem to forget we live by the sea at all – we are aware it is there, of course, but our days are so busy that we seldom make time to visit. It made me want to use a creative approach to reflect on this, so I caged collected sand, chalk and stones and I froze seawater. I took these little cages to an urban area of the city as a way to let the seaside visit the people as opposed to the other way around. I stacked them in such a way that, with time, the seawater would thaw and run through the sand, chalk and stones to leave its trace as a fact of being there.

I don’t think we can consider the concept of ‘environment’ without acknowledging the fact and effect of ‘time’ upon it. It’s clear, however we view an environment – whether it be personal, local, global, natural, or manmade, that it is altered by time. It is in a state of constant flux. When we think creatively or make art in any form we have to remember that everything is in a fluid state…whether it be fast and mercurial or lumbering and seemingly unmoving. Everything is heading somewhere and nothing is unchanging regardless of how we perceive its pace.

The world is a dynamic space and we’d do well to keep up with it.

If you are interested in studying on the Creative Arts degree, take a look at the course details here to find out more.