Susan Derges
Artist statement
Water has been the focus of my photographic
work for the past 27 years. I first became aware
of the fragility and preciousness of this element
when I lived in Japan in the early 1980s
simultaneously with seeing it’s potential to
operate as a metaphor for a holistic approach
to the natural world that includes our
creative participation.
The Observer and the Observed series (1991) uses
an early scientific experiment, demonstrating
how a vibrating water jet can appear as distinct
water droplets when viewed under a strobe
light vibrating at the same frequency, as a
metaphor for the interaction of the observer
with that which is observed.
Full Circle (1992–1993) and the River Taw series
(1997–1998) were more directly concerned with
the natural cycles of particular life forms and
their relationship to specific bodies of water.
Full Circle continues with the metaphor of a
scientific gaze whereas the River Taw and
related prints attempt a more direct and tactile
relationship to water by using the landscape as
a large darkroom that enables photo paper to
be immersed beneath the surface of water and
exposed to a microsecond of light that prints all
of the detail of river, fauna and environment at
a one-to-one scale. The prints are intended be
of a scale that makes a direct relationship with
the body, where one is not only immersed in
the image but through that experience makes
connections with the materiality of water itself.
The Eden Project provided an opportunity
to explore these ideas within an appropriate
architectural setting – the Education Resource
Centre was built on the growth principals
of the forest canopy. Large scale photograms
of the transformation of water within the
hydrological cycle were printed into the
laminate of architectural glass and became
37 panels that formed the solar terrace within
the roof structure of the building, which people
could walk around both in the open air and in the
interior rooms of the top floor of the building.
The metamorphosis of water as it recycles itself
throughout the environment became a visual
narrative that also operated as a metaphor for
wider cycles of life, death and renewal.
