Susan Trangmar
Susan Trangmar explores practices of space and representations of landscape place, site and temporality through the media of sculptural installation; expanded photography; moving image and light.
Her practice is marked by an approach which sees the creative process as an unfolding ‘construction site’ which incorporates the agency of the artist, processes of disassembly, restructuring and retracing - thus allowing the core material to be recomposed for differing contexts. An enduring concern is the interval between perception and recollection which is informed by the imaginary and differing experiences of duration. The materiality of light is a fundamental aspect of this.
Recent projects include:
Exposures, a time-based projection installation exploring the worked, lived architectural space of a productive coal mine at Bilsthorpe Nottingham shortly before it closed in 1997 (Angel Row Gallery and Oriel Cardiff 1996-8);
A Question of Distance a time based performance/ projection installation exploring the place and role of the artist as ‘stranger’ and the interpretation of landscape in the region of Palestine/Israel (Waygood Gallery Newcastle; The Room, London; Kibbutz Gallery Tel Aviv; Um Al Fahem Gallery Israel; The International Centre, Bethlehem Palestine; Photosynkyria, Kythera Greece 2003-6);
Road Map. a video work exploring the intricate relationship between the visual representation of landscape and the imaginative act of listening/witnessing. Through the format of a ‘road movie’ we listen to a narrated encounter between an Israeli soldier and an arrested Palestinian subject, as told by the soldier, accompanied by video projection of landscape seen through the windscreen of a moving car. As the narrative unfolds, the visual landscape which is intermittently obscured by rain and windscreen wipers, becomes more vague and unidentifiable as the car leaves the road and finally arrives at a dead end. (Waygood Gallery Newcastle 2005)
Shifting Terrains, a series of projection/ sound installations exploring the confluence of industry; rural landscape and the elements ( Box Gallery 38 Ostend Belgium; Peninsular Arts Plymouth; Lethaby Gallery CSM 2006-10);
A Play in Time, a two channel video work based on the practices of space which take place in a public urban park ( Photoworks; Brighton Museum and Art Gallery; Urban Encounters Tate Britain symposium 2009; Artsway 2009; Photaumnales Beauvais France 2011).
Current projects include:
A Forest of Signs, a photographic project exploring the place of urban trees as part of the urban imaginary and public space, and which develops in dialogue with literary and vernacular texts. (Conference presentations at ‘Literary London’ UCL 2011 and ‘Framing the City' at CRESC conference, University of Manchester 2011) and In Passing, a projection installation exploring the relation between the so called still and moving image which continues the Shifting Terrains series (LAB Gallery New York 2011).
In pedagogic terms, she considers the specific material processes of art practice to provide the methodologies which drive processes of research forwards, a practice based approach which guides her work as Research Supervisor on the PhD programme at CSM/UAL.
Current employment:
Reader in Fine Art Central Saint Martins University of the Arts.
Susan Trangmar
e-mail: s.trangmar@csm.arts.ac.uk
Website: http://susantrangmar.com/
www.csm.arts.ac.uk/research