My small contribution to Journey of a Photograph is now off to its next recipient.
It’s taken me a while to be ready to make something for this project, in part because of all the travel and work that came between the parcel’s arrival and my own ability to stop and think about what I could add … what would be a suitable and (hopefully) interesting addition to the diversity I found sandwiched in the envelope.
I wanted to bring something about motion and space and connection to bear here. The Photograph and its travelling companions have been all over the planet, and in the last few months, I have been across the country, twice. The time and kilometres spent at 35000 feet or more could be a divisive thing – a separation from what keeps me going. It can be seen that way, certainly. Being ‘away’ is like that: the removal from home and all that entails, separation from family and friends and familiar things that ground and keep us whole. But the going to provided their own sense of home and community; these just-past travels brought me to new friends, allowed me to re-connect to others I know already, provided the opportunity to go to places I hold dear in my heart and see family that I miss deeply too.
Like the pull of the tide, this motion has seemed inevitable, and essential.
Lines.
On a map. Highways, dirt side roads, borders, boundaries. Railways. Ways of getting to. And from. And away.
On my hands and around my eyes, the parts of me most evident and face-first in the making, and moving from one place to another. Squinting into the sun. Looking at the horizon.
At what comes next.
On a shore, marking time and tide and the space between one land and another. Divisions metaphorical too – not to be crossed.
I made a photocollage to send on: using the original Photograph as the base layer, adding another image I found in the package, and then finally some image stills for a video I shot in the UK last year.
But, in the end, this seemed inadequate to the task at hand: attempting to capture space and time and motion and the movement of one small package that – in traversing the globe – has connected, and will continue to connect – so many people.
So. In the end, my final offering is this:
… travel on … and enjoy the journey, and the stillness within it.
Journeyofaphotograph 
I like the concept and the video, wonderul addition to the “Journey”. needless to say that the photographs of the lines of stones in the beach and the “broken branches” are my favourites!
Thank you jesús! Both of those were installations I created; one in Nova Scotia and one in Newfoundland.
and that’s a definite ‘wow’ from me. Love how you’ve moved with this…
Thank you kiwiskan! You are very kind.
Great contribution, Sydney! Really like your interpretation.
Thank you Richard!
Very excited to see the journey moving along again! I love your collections here, a connecting mood to them which very much moves forwards..
Thank so much! Looking forward to what comes next 🙂 ….
yes, there is a real sense of onwards here. I love that you included a video, partly because we haven’t had that yet, but also because it, as a ‘package’ along with your collage and other images, is like a summing up, or a conclusion; it illustrates perfectly what your post and this project is about: lines, connections, movement, progression… and there is something constant and comforting about the quiet rumble of the train and the visual of speeding lines. Comforting, but at the same time hopeful and expectant of what will come next, because of course, a journey pre-empts a destination. Thanks so much for your contribution, Sydney. I hope you enjoyed participating, and as you say travel on… Emilyx
Thank you for the opportunity Emily – and for your patience while I travelled and made work, and pondered. This has been terrific project to be involved in, and one that has allowed me the opportunity to ponder and process some of my feelings about movement and connection in my own practice. Back to the idea that all making is, really, about the process rather than the product … just like life. A good thing to be reminded of this in such a direct way, and to have the need to work with the concept so directly was a delight. Thank you.
Reblogged this on searchingtosee and commented:
The journey travels on. Sydney Lancaster, visual artist, writer and musician from Canada gives us her take on journeying, motion, connections and lines….
That’s a wonderful video Sydney – And so interesting. That view of the movement of a train going on and on – such a basic concept.
Thank you Carla! I want to work with that video more – I have several shot in that manner that I’d like to edit properly and work with … perhaps integrate them with a body of drawings and/or photos. Not sure yet, except that I know I’m not done with them (or they with me!) …
Sydney, the video is truly mesmerizing. An abstract painting on the move!
All those spaces that connect us, gorgeous.
Thank you so much Karen. Yes it does feel very much like a painting to me too! I am really intrigued with the challenge of finding way to represent that process of connection and movement (and change) … so I was happy that this little tidbit seemed to point the way toward meeting that need.