The photographic work of Julia Peck has been developing over a period of years into a thorough investigation into how the gaze in landscape photography can be used to disrupt traditional ideas of seeing and knowing in order to address haptic, sensual responses to the environment, as well as fear, alienation and belonging. The impulse for this work has been to use photography in such a way that the implications of Cartesian perspectivalism are undermined (or suppressed) to allow for openly subjective or critical responses to the landscape to come forward in the viewer. The aim of this practice is to offer other ways of knowing or experiencing alienation from our surroundings. Indeed, Peck’s work has developed as a way of trying to capture experience in photographic form.
Visual explorations of still life whilst an undergraduate student led to a series of work which undermined perspectical space, and elements of this have reappeared in the landscape practices, such as Quarry (2000). This is a triptych which uses two images which have had their perspectival space altered combined with a ‘straight’ photograph. However, all three images do not offer much in the way of a view, with no apparent subject or object intended. What the viewer is presented with is a series of images which emphasize the sensual aspect of the forest. This is not presented in an uncritical form though, as the central image sets up a dynamic of watcher/watched which is unresolved and productively tense, casting doubt upon the enjoyment of the image.
The ‘view’ – the product of perspectivalism – was also questioned in work such as Face (1998) and Unsighted (2005). Face offers a series of images from a quarry. The viewer is confronted with solid walls, no horizon and no apparent means of escape from these large images. They simultaneously propose a close examination of the rocks and an enjoyment of their colour and texture, whilst also making the viewer intimidated and uncomfortable. This has been explored further in Unsighted which was made in New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Through studying colonial responses to the bush (both photographic and written) and the frequency with which stories of being ‘lost’ occur in literature and the reported press (featured in the writing of Peter Pierce The Country of Lost Children) it is evident that colonial interventions into the landscape were a result of not just trying to make it productive but also of subjecting it to a predictable and knowable spatial model (perspectivalism) through clearing for grazing and crop growing. The fear of the environment, such as it was through Aboriginal intervention, comes through the perspectival gaze being largely thwarted by the ‘bush’.
Development of future work will consider the landscape as a social space and as contested sites for leisure users. This is currently being explored through a project based on Holkham Bay, which offers leisure seekers and hobbyists a site for their recreational use.
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Julia Peck, born Portsmouth, England, 1972. Gained her MA in Photography from London College of Printing in 2001 and is currently completing a PhD with the University of Wales, Newport on Nineteenth Century Australian Landscape Photography. Group shows include Shifting Horizons: Women’s Landscape Photography Now at MAC, Birmingham and Metro Gallery, Derby which was accompanied by a publication edited by Liz Wells of the same title.
More recent publishing includes Quarry in Next Level (Vol 2 no 2) and regular inclusion in group shows including Hirschl Gallery, London and Harris Interiors, Dorset, both 2004. Peck has written a critical essay for Suzette Bross’s Commute, 2002 and is now writing reviews for Source magazine.
Peck has much educational experience in higher, further and community education, focusing on creative and conceptual development. Workshops have included techniques such as Lith Printing, advanced black and white printing, alternative process, studio and location lighting, colour photography, small, medium and large format photography skills.
Her practice is developing in response to research on Colonial responses to the Australian environment and social uses of the landscape in the UK.
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