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'Rock climbers attribute qualities to a landscape, and claim ownership of their climbs by writing about their experiences. Climbing discourses mediate the exploration of the landscape and its written and pictorial representation. This paper examines how I as a climber know and experience landscape through the verbal and written word. As British academic Robert Macfarlane suggests, I began to learn to read and interpret the surface of the rock face before me through the shared cultural memory of a climber. Words render the formerly invisible nuances of a rock face, visible and real, and present the promise of an unexplored climbing route. The language of climbing associated with Mt Arapiles in Western Victoria informs both my studio practice and my engagement with a specific place. My art practice researches specific texts, guide books, climbing magazines, and club newsletters that reference the language, systems and structures through which the climbing fraternity constructs its vernacular landscape. These materials provide evidence that climbers share a common understanding and a particular reading of the landscape. Rock climbing publications affirm and reaffirm what climbers know and experience and will experience in the landscape. They demonstrate how language can create landscapes that suit a specific purpose and in turn influence our subjective experience of it.' (Introduction)
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Axon : Creative Explorations
