Why is that search for meaning so alluring? Hyland believes that it’s woven into our contemporary search for authenticity. “So much of our lives are based around reproductions and mass-manufactured illusion,” she observes. “I think people constantly try to escape our mediated world because it’s very difficult to find something truly authentic…we start to get that gnawing feeling that we are all occupying the same space, and so we seek out new experiences as a remedy to that feeling.”
I find Catherine Hyland’s approach to examining our need to step outside and discounted from our “mediated world’’ inspiring. The way she produces images of vast landscapes, often people are not noticeable right away, but the traces and marks made are apparent.
Her images are wide open for you as the viewer. First, see how beautiful the location she is and drawn to it, then you start to notice little details of human traces on the land, and how we curate to our needs and pleasures.
When it comes to my own work, I want these themes to be apart of what the audience interprets. I want to draw awareness to our influence and interactions we have with our wildness.
Figure 1: Universal Experience, Catherine Hyland
Figure 2: Universal Experience, Catherine Hyland
Figure 3 :Lithium Mining | Atacama Desert, Catherine Hyland
References :
Hyland, C., 2020. Catherine Hyland. [online] Catherinehyland.co.uk. Available at: <http://www.catherinehyland.co.uk/work/universal-experience/> [Accessed 20 August 2020].
Hyland, C., 2020. Catherine Hyland. [online] Catherinehyland.co.uk. Available at: <http://www.catherinehyland.co.uk/work/lithium-mining-bloomberg-chile/#chile_-0726-001-1_v1.jpg> [Accessed 20 August 2020].
LensCulture. 2020. Universal Experience: Truth, Authenticity, And Tourism - Photographs By Catherine Hyland | Lensculture. [online] Available at: <https://www.lensculture.com/articles/catherine-hyland-universal-experience-truth-authenticity-and-tourism> [Accessed 20 August 2020].