Hello LAB Group

All of this webpage/blog is about making meaningful connections, or relationships.

The image here - of the salt lake shore - is a still from a wonderful film called 'Beau Travail', set in Djibouti, East Africa. I've sent through to you a short excerpt - just 3 minutes - from this film.

I think it is relevant in many ways to the fieldwork, the theme, and to your individual projects. It grounds all of this in a real salt-landscape, and beautifully captures the fragile, sparse, crystalline nature of the space. The sound is also wonderfully evocative.

I know you have looked at images of other similar salt landscapes, such as the site of the land-art piece called 'Spiral Jetty', in the USA. I think this film excerpt will help you get some sort of feel for the qualities of these places.

I have uploaded field-trip images to HERE

I'm going to link below to an online version (but may only keep it live for a week or two....)

http://vimeo.com/42201613

CONSOLIDATED COMMENTS:

Field Trip

Favourite aspects-

Izzy: Cornwall Council Salt Silos at Scorrier. I found listening to the sounds that the salt made as it was shifted and walked over the most interesting part of the trip because it was fascinating to hear sounds that cannot otherwise be heard.

Beth: I enjoyed doing some photography at both sites. In particular I liked doing portraits however at the council salt silo the shapes that the mounds of salt made were also great to explore lines within the image such as diagonals.

Natasha: My favourite part of today was visiting the salt silo at the council to experience the different textures and tones, and the giant mountains of salt.

We would like to say thank you to Antony for being so helpful on the trip and inspiring some great ideas.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - 01:25 PM

Cat

I really enjoyed the language of the extraction process at the Cornish Sea Salt Company: Super Saturation (a particular favourite), Bittern and Fleur de Sel - did anyone else pick anything up? Anything from the salt silo?

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - 01:46 PM

Antony

Hello LAB

Thanks for your post-fieldtrip comments.

I agree - the depot was great. I've never seen so much salt, and I think it is amazing that one of the huge mountains was sea-salt from far-away Egypt. Very exotic.

It is interesting that the Irish salt was mined from deep in the Earth, and is potentially tens or hundreds of millions of years old, while the sea-salt is scraped off the surface, and is only a few years old. Maybe someone could find out exactly what these numbers (ages) are?

I doubt that the workers at the depot (or in the gritting vehicles) give much thought to the story of the salt, the history of its journey. to them it is just a chemical. But art and creativity can help reveal that which is hidden or ignored...or difficult to appreciate in the normal course of events.

The sound-recording experiments were a chance to try to pick up on some aspects of the environment that we don't usually hear.

I'll write another comment very soon. I just need to bundle up some more images and upload them for you, and especially Beth.

And I suggest we do a Skype next week?

By the way, because we didn't get to even see some salt at the Cornish Salt Company, I went out and bought some (see attached image) so that I could touch and taste...and smell it. I'm also using the Egyptian sea-salt as my cooking salt at the moment...also in the image.

Best of luck for now. Antony

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - 02:03 PM