markerstones for the millennium

Recently I have been working for an environmental consultancy, photographing the horizon from viewpoints from which proposed wind farms may be seen. I visit locations within a 50 mile radius of a proposed site and take 5 photographs to form a panorama.

I have been sent to obscure places to photograph what is not yet there.

Some of the horizons are really beautiful and I am intrigued by this new way of structuring imagery. What strikes me is that, with no immediate subject matter, there are subtle differences in each location: seasonal changes, nuances and characteristics of these nondescript places.

So the notion of documenting stones which mark the entrances to a parish boundary appealed to me, as it encompassed this previous work: working from specific points within the environment surrounding a central location, the points being public entrances, exits, pathways and roads.

What impressed me was the work that goes into a project of this size and I was intrigued by the process gone through to develop it. I wondered how the texts were choosen, the stones designed, the artists selected and the sculptures sited.

I discovered that the sites were chosen before the local people responded by suggesting inscriptions for the stones. So in this documentation I wanted to emphasise the situation of the stones and the relationship between the text, stone and environment.

Rose Butler