Emma Rochester: Jordan

Preliminary drawings of bodily experience:

Emma Rochester. Documentation: Drawing a line from the border crossing of Wadi Araba Crossing - located in the south of Israel, 324km away from Amman, connecting the two Red Sea towns of Eilat in Israel and Aqaba in Jordan- to the end of the built up area of the industrial port town of Aqaba. 2011

Emma Rochester. Documentation: View from the bus whilst driving through the commercial port city of Aqaba in Jordan- the edge of the city is marked with a promenade of palm trees. 2011

Emma Rochester. Documentation: The interior of the bus on the route between the Wadi Araba Crossing, the Southern Border crossing between Israel and Jordan and the archaeological site of Petra. 2011

Emma Rochester. Documentation: Mapping the movements of walking bare foot from the ticketed entrance of Petra to The Siq. The place where you can slide between two hidden gorge faces and slip into the hidden city of Petra. 2011

Re-Imagining Space: Recreating a feminine form of cartography

When one looks at a map one sees place devised and redefined into a strict grid like system with roads and landscape marked out in different coloured lines. The grid (upon which the map is constructed) with its hard lineal structure not only signifies place but is also a cultural reminder of how society contains, defines and understands place. Terrain is reduced to simple lines that were once devised and decided upon by men.

While cartography may once have been designed to demacate place, somewhere along the line mapping became mistaken and intermeshed with place. Maps became formailsed, accurate, exact, unquestionable in some cases, easier to understand than the place itself. In sum, maps replace place.

But what if place, terrain, territory and spaces could be represented in more personally fulfilling and gender inclusive ways? What if one could separate the unquestioning belief in the digital navigation system and the two dimensional fold out map, look up, look down, gaze around and see that place can be defined in a myriad of ways, and that what we now have to define place is not necessarily the best form of construct. What if place could be represented in a way that was personally meaningful and reflective of the individual experience rather than of the man who originally invented or created the map?

The Meaning of Method:

Through both performative and static works Emma Rochester inhabits the space in order to create a new dialogue of how place can be presented and invites the viewer to extend their imagination beyond the line of what is presented.

Walking through the space with pen on paper or even something as simple as drawing a line by walking. Emma Rochester creates drawings that can be seen as layered memories of place. These are often considered seismographic as they simultaneously map the movement of the artist through place.

The performative walk also becomes one of assessment. Of understanding ones location within the space dependent upon the point on which one stands on the line: Like the map which has its basis in scientific assessment and determination of place so too does the walk becomes a reflection on orientation and ones position in relation to not only the line the artist walks but also in terms of mapping as an entirety of lines that culminate in grid like structures.

WIthin the performative aspect of Emma Rochester's work the line transforms beyond its' delineation on the floor to exists between the footsteps and the movement she makes as she moves around the space.

The artist often dressed in black or in tutus -of a corresponding colour to the surroundings- no longer represents herself as an individual but becomes a generic signifier of all women as she inserts in feminine into the map making tradition

Emma Rochester

Pages

Philosophy & Biography

Jordan

New Work Makers

Re-Imagining Space: Recreating a feminine form of cartography

The Meaning of Method:

About Me

Three is a bicycle in my studio