Hawley Square: Terra Cognita
Derek Hampson & Gary Priestnall

This exhibition is the expression of a practical and theoretical dialogue that has been ongoing for nearly two years between the exhibition curators Derek Hampson and Gary Priestnall. Introduced by Professor Alan Dodson, Director of the University of Nottingham's Institute of Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG) in early 2000, Hampson and Priestnall immediately recognised unexpected similarities between their research and studio work. Both have an interest in problems of representation; in Hampson's case, as an artist, this has meant the pursuit of a language that would enable the world of vision to be reproduced through the infinitely complex combinations that oil paint and canvas can bring about. For Priestnall, as a Geographer, this has meant considering effective ways of visualising geographical information using multi-dimensional digital models and animation.

'Hawley Square' is one of three projects under the umbrella of the 'Mapping Change', all three take Margate as their subject, with the ultimate aim of creating a large number of representations of Margate that relate image to place. Of the other projects 'Crossing' associates representation with seven specific routes through the town. 'Gridlock' ties a large number of representations (over 170) to each other and to specific, identifiable locations on a map of Margate.

'Hawley Square' brings together five artists and five Geographers around five shared themes of representation: Survey, Function, Networks, Landcover and 3D Model. Artists and Geographers have been paired and asked to make work around one of the themes, either independently or collaboratively. Survey brought together Derek Hampson and Andrew Nesbitt of the IESSG; 3D Model brought together Gary Priestnall of the University of Nottingham's School of Geography and Mecoli-Sparks. Networks brought together Wendy Smith and Pragya Agarwal again of the of the University of Nottingham's School of Geography. Function brought together the Liverpool based billboard artist Alan Dunn and Charles Watkins and Landcover brought together video artist Michael Etherton and Paul Aplin.

Hawley Square is the geographical and symbolic heart of the project, the location where the project was first envisioned. It was also the starting point when artists and geographers visited Margate together in August 2001 to begin their work, the rendezvous point from which everyone fanned out to explore the area. Hampson and his project partner, Andrew Nesbitt of the IESSG, remained in the square in order to carry out a detailed survey of the area. Hampson was directed by Nesbitt to every significant point on the square to stand with a measuring prism, so that angles and distance could be measured with a theodolite. For Hampson it was an experience that directly transferred drawing into the physical activity of walking. As with the other the works in this exhibition this experience was transferred into an exhibited work, generating a different understanding of the area.

If one were to look for an artistic precursor for the works in this exhibition, one could place it within a genre of painting that sought it's inspiration not in the calm of the rural landscape but in the ever-changing nature of that twentieth century organism par excellence the City. Artists from the nineteenth century onwards have sought to represent the City, to capture its contingent nature.

From a geographical perspective the works presented in this exhibition offer a glimpse of the variety of representations which could be made of a place. Within the discipline of Geography we find specialists in cultural, economic, political and historical geography working alongside colleagues studying rivers, landscape, biogeography and coasts, to mention just a few. What unites these subjects and forms a common ground for the people who study them, is a fascination with patterns in space and through time, and the social, physical and technological processes which operate to shape these patterns. Technological advances have offered geographers new ways to capture information, new tools to explore patterns and processes, and alternative techniques to model and visualise landscapes, from wilderness to busy conurbation.

Margate is not a typical bustling Metropolis typified by endless restless change, rather it is a place isolated and distinctive that has seen itself as somehow having grown apart from the rest of England. Margate speaks of a reality of urban existence that is the other side of the coin of frantic urbanism valorised in much twentieth century art. Local people call the area in which Margate lies, with a grim affection, 'Planet Thanet', acknowledging its singular nature.

As with other planets it occupies a mythological place in the firmament of those who view it from a distance. Most (not all) project participants openly acknowledge themselves as detached outsiders exploring the area. Yet the aim of the project is to go beyond mythological truisms that get attached so easily to places, and instead begin to generate other representations of what is there. Employing a variety of means and as large a sample as possible to create a multi-layered representation of the place, which when brought together begin a new process of understanding.