Studio Thadian Pillai

Mixed media
2007

The Wall: A metaphor for Essex is a 75 metre long response to context; from the specificity of the site, to its location within the wider region.  It examines a coastal area of eastern England, from the Thames estuary in London to the remote landscape of marshland and dykes that face east, and connect to the Netherlands via the North Sea.  The work makes reference to the cultural and societal expectations of that landscape.  This includes materials’ extraction and landfill; agriculture and food production; energy generation and navigation; 24-hour transportation and international air travel; fortification and defence; pilgrimage and worship.

The Wall is more than a surface.  It is a three-dimensional intervention in space that turns through 90 degrees, and integrates painted elements with live plant material.  It exploits its corner to be a work at once both figurative and landscape; elements of the body are integrated with those of land, sea and sky. 

The work questions the concept that landscape exists outside of ourselves.  It suggests that apparent boundaries between man and environment are illusory, and makes explicit the intertwined dependencies between ecological and social systems.

The Wall is sponsored by The Big Lottery Fund and the Foundation for Sport & the Arts.  Additional photography courtesy of Jenni Campbell, Emily Newton, Dr Jill Raggett and Tilly Shiner.