Everywhere is somewhere else

Looking away from Antarctica
everywhere else is somewhere.
Stand on rocks of this once live land
and you know our past and future.

imagery: Stephen Eastaugh,
Everysomewherever, 2003-now

animation: L.R.
in progress

Title: S.E.W.N. Cardinal points. (Antarctica)
Year: 2006
Medium: Acrylic, thread, linen
Size: 210 cm x 350 cm.
Gallery: Bellas-Milani Gallery

I have sewn and painted a pattern

based on the cardinal points of cartography.

Antarctica is a place where mapping is still

a major element of research.

Locating oneself in this white wilderness

is highly important and rather tricky.

I am fond of maps, always have been

and there is indeed a relationship

between art and cartography

as they both attempt to make

meaning of the world

or communicate information.

The similarities between maps and art

revolve around both attempting

to give information.

Turning the unfamiliar into the familiar.

It is presumed

that the first scribblings

in the dirt by humans

were maps.

Unlike cartography

which is concerned with location,

law and information.

I concern myself with dislocation,

experimentation,

imagined space and mystery.

The grid pattern I use

is also influenced by Tongan tapa designs.

I wanted in some way to make

a raw Antarctic art

as someone had to do it!

There has never been any indigenous people on the Ice,

very little art has been made in Antarctica.

This work uses cartography and pattern

to try to locate myself somewhere somehow.

Stephen Eastaugh,

Amsterdam, 06/01/2007 10:20 PM