Arwenack has been on my mind for a while as I read about its history in my Foundation year and took my work there to photograph with rope making in mind.
I have walked up and down Arwenack so many times. I am familiar with its location, where it leads from and to, roughly how long it will take me to walk it. I could give a description of it, observing the rows of trees on either side, their green leaves which look beautiful under the street lamps at night, and fall to seal the pathway in Autumn, the wooden benches slimy and rotting, the width of the tarmac which allows two couples to pass by each other but not much more. I know all this but not its history, its process, how it came to be... by whom were the trees planted, when was the tarmac laid and by what was the width determined? My description of the place could grow more and more detailed if I looked closer, discovering the patterns on the bark, the angles of the branches, the fissures where water collects when it rains, but I wonder what level of detail I would need to learn about its past. Does anything physical remain that speaks of its history, or is it only through knowledge, memory, books, that Arwenack can be awarded a more complete identity?
This line of thought runs with my fascination for how humans exist and operate without knowing how or why. We are born with bodies that function, but without knowledge of their structure and workings. We have a heart but, independently, we would not know it; the murmur in our chests would be just that, with no account of its cause. In many ways, our own insides are as much a mystery to us as anything else we are not able to see or experience, and understand. This level of ignorance regarding the human body is unimaginable due to knowledge instilled in us from birth (indeed, the heart is checked in the very first moments of life). Before written information, the heart must have been known through centuries of killing animals and experiencing the dead. It is curious that knowledge of the heart must have come from examining the inanimate article.
The idea of skin and surface is interesting in both matters, as it is all that can be observed in the present moment. Arwenack can be seen, and touched (and smelt, heard, tasted), but the only things evident to these senses will be of the physical form, surfaces, immediate, accessible. Likewise, the outer skin is all that can be truly known, and sensed about the body, without acquired knowledge. I am keen to combine the physical, tangible aspects of Arwenack with the 'unknown' context and history, exploring the relationship between both.
Skin was another concept which I had in mind to investigate over the Summer. I was thinking about how humans regenerate cell by cell. I have managed to acquire a shed snake skin, which I might look to as an aesthetic consideration for a piece. I love its paper-like translucency and fragility, both suggestive of it being a remnant, a leftover, not the whole. I have been looking up videos of snake's shedding their skin and researching the biological process which occurs in snake's as well as humans.
