LOST FOR(\r)EST
Experimental Spatial Capture 2023 // 2024In the moorlands of Wheeldale, North Yorkshire, there is a mile-long stretch of an ancient road, complete with its hard core and drainage ditches. Historically connected to the Roman forts of Cawthorn and Lease Rigg, it is considered the best-preserved Roman road in northern Europe.
'Lost For(\r)est' is an ongoing project to reconstruct a lost forest in a valley at the end of the Roman road, where my brother laid our father to rest. In 2022, during a return visit, our conversations centred around our reverence for the site. We spent countless childhood summers wild camping there. It was a place of wonderment, where we cut the soles of our feet on moss and knobbly tree roots and waded through the Wheeldale Gill stream. We discovered that local governments had flattened the forest due to the presence of an invasive non-native plant species.
Reconstructing old family photographs, videos, photogrammetric, and LiDAR captures, volumetric techniques and their temporal processes present a complex amalgamation of various effects, projections, and memories. The project investigates virtual environments as a continuation of sentiment when physical landscapes cease to exist.