Abstract

Landscape, both the actual and the representational, "is a work of the mind" (Schama, 1995, p. 7) it encompasses ideas of difference, arcadia, commodification, nationalism and many others. How does one negotiate the physical and the representational when trying to reach beyond the traditions of the sublime? Anchoring my research in the physical landscape of Kings Park, Perth, Australia whilst looking at looking this paper explores the manifestation of ideas about land in both forms. Central to my research approach is W.J.T. Mitchell's theses on landscape number eight, which states: "landscape is an exhausted medium, no longer viable as a mode of artistic expression" (1994, p. 5). Countered immediately by his next, tongue in cheek, sentence: "like life, landscape is boring; we must not say so" (1994, p. 5). I agree, and this written and visual investigation explores the possibility of rupture to the accepted and traditional Western forms for landscape as a means of creating new conceptualisations. The Australian landscape genre's seminal nature in articulating and circulating national character and identity is central to the need to reapproach it as a valid form for interrogation. This paper examines the place for oppositional voices through the medium to the prevailing nationalistic rhetoric and uses the actual landscape of Kings Park as a physical and represented site to investigate the manifestations of such.