Drawing at the edge of the map: Legenda

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

In this chapter Mojsiewicz positions writing and drawing as part of a biomythography – a weaving together of myth, history, and biography in epic narrative; a translation and articulation of the self via the space of memory, and a site where meaning can be made. This locus takes in the site-writing of Jane Rendell, the spatial phatics of deCerteau, Minard’s cartography, the map, the itinerary, the ariel view, the substitute and the ‘substratum of disaster’. Rendell states that, the very act of telling the story may also be understood as a site where meaning is constructed” (Rendell, 2002). Mojsiewicz describes the ‘active site’ of her writing as a geographical place that she has spent years trying to locate - a point of origin with multiple possibilities, and therefore possible locations. This chapter attempts to unravel the complexities of site through processes of art practice, archival research, history, literature and film. Through Mojsiewicz’s own contextual writing and the creation of surrogate, filmic landscapes in Scotland she interrogates the idea of that specific place. It is the place her own family were exiled from, and she uses it repeatedly as a way to investigate the idea of mobile, ‘fugitive’ identities in contemporary art practice, and specifically moving image works. During the editing process for her doctoral multi-screen video work, Mojsiewicz mapped out everything she knew about the place and its history. The resulting Legenda is a large hand-made drawing, which is an amalgamation of many maps of this borderland area – in Polish, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and German produced in different eras with different agendas. This much-disputed territory was routinely claimed by all the bordering countries or occupying forces to understand agricultural, archaeological and military advantages.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDrawing as Placemaking
Subtitle of host publicationEnvironment, History and Identity
EditorsSimon Woolham, Jill Journeaux
PublisherBloomsbury
Chapter9
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 2024

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • map
  • topography
  • eastern europe
  • vertigo
  • drawing
  • identity
  • history
  • place
  • environment

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