Harcourt Arboretum : Reinventing the Claude Glass

Abstract

Residency: Harcourt Arboretum, Oxford University. Reinventing the Claude Glass The project was situated in the context of an international artist’s residency at the University of Oxford’s Harcourt Arboretum where artists collaborated with the arboretum’s specialist curators and fellow resident artists from France, Germany and Romania. The practice-led research project: Reinventing the Claude Glass addresses the question of how to represent our contemporary consciousness of landscape and environment and how to transform an environment into a comprehensible landscape image that brings the viewer to reflect upon the prefabricated perceptions of landscape carried as a mental template. Also, how to convey a direct contrast between the representations of an Arcadian 18th Century landscape, seemingly insulated from change, with the disturbing awareness of our role in affecting the natural environment. Further research questions centre on the relationship between the artist and the the arboretum and how this context for research inflects the work of art with meaning.