This article outlines
a project
undertaken by Paul Haydock-Wilson in the mud of Deptford Creek during 2006 and 2007

Deptford Deposit: A Tidal Time Lapse

The project involved fixing a series of equal sized etching plates, which varied in metal-type and preparation, to the bed of Deptford Creek at low tide. They were left in situ for varying durations, recovered and finally the results were printed. Initially, I wanted to explore and record the action of tidal process on a soft-grounded plate. To some degree it echoes Andy Goldsworthy's sculptural interventions - working in and with the environment, largely intuitively, and giving up a degree of autographic control to the forces of nature.

Deptford Deposit also looks at an urban space.
Most of our spaces are externally invigilated. CCTV is everywhere, recording, monitoring, controlling but ironically largely ignored and unreliable. In one of Francis Alys' Seven Walks in London (2005) the artist takes the 'Path of Most/Least Surveillance' by constructing a route that either passes or avoids CCTV cameras. Deptford creek is an uninvigilated space, marginal, transitional. There is nothing of commercial value and therefore no interests to protect. But there is wildlife, such as ducks, swans, a heron, and a tidal waterway, whose existence stops South London flooding. People also live on the creek in houseboats and industrial estates, artist's studios, an international dance school and Brownfield sites border it. It is an open space in a crowded city, open to elements, wind, rain, tide, sun, and air. Big skies, full of planes, helicopters and commuter trains as they pass over the lifting bridge, a sublime post-industrial structure now redundant and rusting.

In attempting to represent this landscape I'm engaged in the act of placing and leaving a prepared object, an etching plate, which is a simple recording device, in the creek. This takes the form of a geographical time-based experiment but has connotations of sacrificial rites. In fixing the plates firmly in place with copper wire, to an inaccessable, muddy, smelly, unproductive space it almost becomes a ritual act of sacrifice, but one that will be taken back at a later date. The physical act of going down into the creek, sinking into the lower depths, descending the broken ladder from the hulk of an old minesweeper becomes a somewhat Romantic, or even anti-heroic act. I feel like an exploratory scientist, holding the plate like a waiter and gripping the rotting rungs, which break and my weight is only supported by wire. A high wire act, balancing and being careful not to mark the surface before it's positioned or the experiment is ruined. I've drilled holes in each corner to fix the plate to its bed.

I experience a thrill at the anticipation of potential change, what is happening to those surfaces. Life starts to form on the surface. The metal reacts with and merges into the creek bed. Rust spots grow in the centre and silt accrues. After a couple of months the weathering process and sacrifice of authorship is halted and the artefact reclaimed. The decision-making process of how to etch and print these plates has forced me to develop new ways of working. The first plate was deposited with rivulets of silt. (Fig 4). The silt was baked on by the sun and slow etched in acid. Subsequent plates have been literally 'creek-etched' (figs 5,6 & 7). In order to retain the mud, rust, algae and other deposits and effects of subsequent plates, traditional printmaking techniques prove problematic, I experimented with embossing using wet paper. Mud and rust impregnate the paper but are unstable and flake off. So I turned to digital techniques.

Digital scanning and printing makes it possible to faithfully represent the visual qualities of the surface. It also opens up opportunities to resize, manipulate and distort. By enlarging the image, scale and perception shifts dramatically. The microscopic becomes macroscopic and it becomes possible to negotiate the landscape as a surface map. The local tactile and kinaesthetic features of the surface which were previously invisible are now perceptually clear. It turns the viewer into explorers, roaming visually and creating their own cognitive trails.

'Scanning, searching for meaningful presences or significant absences from which to construe a 'true' impression. What the human mind brings to the process is the vast complexity of perception psychology.'
Brown (1999, p.12-13)

Olafur Eliasson's installation, 'Your position surrounded and your surroundings positioned' (1999) literally scans the exhibition space, defines surfaces and turns viewers into active participants. By using cultural technologies to illuminate natural processes, in this instance the process of looking, Eliasson forces us to question what is 'true' and how we perceive, record, and relate to our environment. He provides a bridge between culture and nature, gently subverts the 'aesthetic myth' and forces us to question our 'mystical' participation in it.

In Conclusion...

Deptford Creek at low-tide, opposite the Laban. (PS)










The lifting bridge over the railway on Deptford Creek (PS)

Detail from:
An Eroded History of the Lower Depths
Vol.I, 15.7.06 - 29.9.06
(PHW)