I could not quite get my head round Mark Power’s 26 different endings initially. What were the 26 different endings and what was this strange grid at the beginning of the book? Of course, the 26 refers to the 26 letters of the alphabet take from the map, he used, the London A-Z and the grid is the grid on the map, showing the locations where he took the photographs. Similarly, my initial expectation was that these photographs would be of edgelands as defined by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts in the book by the same name but of course they are not, they are simply the edges of the map which, although probably a suburb, could be in the middle of another town or village. This slightly obscure thinking sometimes proves a challenge for my black and white logic but I am working on it!!!
Having got that sorted I can really appreciate Mark Power’s work, not necessarily all that different from other photographers depiction of drab, dreary ordinary places but the thinking behind it is clever. I also appreciated David Chandler’s autobiographical essay. How many of us have watched people; parents or even themselves, try to climb out of what they felt was a mundane rut only to find that when they got there they didn’t fit there either. It reminded me of a phrase my grandmother used; ‘they’re no better than they should be’. I could visualise the sight that met David Chandler’s eyes when he opened he back gate of his old home to find the cherry tree, planted by his mother many years before, in full bloom and laughed out loud at the thought of Chandler’s mother’s embarrassment at having such a lovely tree flowering in her garden on that dreary council estate. (Chandler, 2007)
So what has this got to do with assignment 3? Ever since my tutor suggested I might look at maps in his assignment 1 feedback I have started thinking about maps and mapping. I used Google maps to mark out the route of my assignment 2 train journey and a throw away line early in the part 3 course work about brown signs, got me exploring maps and brown tourist signs in particular as a possible theme for assignment 3. Once I started thinking about brown signs, I started seeing them everywhere and began to realise how many variations there are from English Heritage sites, to gardens, to viewpoints of specific types of attraction such as birds of prey centres. I would obviously need to confine this to a smallish area, say the Forest of Dean but even then there are dozens of variations. When I search ‘brown tourist sighs in the Forest of Dean‘ on the internet, I find companies who make signs, local authority guidelines for applying for a sign, directions to different attractions but there does not seem to be a definitive list of signed places. I did find a couple of useful websites which would enable me to focus on a specific area such as the official Forest of Dean and Wye Valley tourist site but there is much research and thought required before I go much further. In the meantime, back to the coursework!
Sources:
Power, mark (2007) 26 Different Endings. Brighton: Photoworks.
Chandler, D. (2007) ‘The Landscape of Disappointment’ In: 26 Different Endings. Brighton: Photoworks.
http://www.wyedeantourism.co.uk/ [Accessed 13 December 2018]
Anne's Landscape Learning Log 