This is my final week in Sion and my final post from the residency.
Through the course of the field work and my time in Sion, I’ve come to realise that the drawings are not simply measurement devices, recording the severity of the heat in the extent of the melt.
Rather, the drawings act as amplifiers of the environmental conditions. Live in the environment, the drawings become animated – actively melting, moving changing. Active beings, living drawings. As ‘drawings' they depart from disciplinary conventions. Traditionally, drawings and works on paper are protected from light, heat and moisture.
But exposing them to the elements, their vulnerability becomes apparent. They reflect and reveal environmental forces that act on the archaeology –not only heat, but moisture, wind erosion. The drawings were submerged, exposed to air and water as well as sun.
Following these exposures, what happens to the drawings? They are dramatically altered, twisted, deformed, weakened ripped. Like shed snake skins, or empty husks of clothing. The drawings have become tools, rather than the thing themselves.
Back at the museum, against the clean spot lit walls, these traces of wear and tear make visible the violence on the environment. What happens to them now? A journey back to Scotland, and see what happens next.
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