PRIVATE KEEP OUT, NO PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY, PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO
PUBLIC ACCESS. It is difficult to walk for long in the English
countryside before some form of ‘Private – Keep Out’ sign is
encountered. There are many different variations of these signs …
some are visually and verbally aggressive, others attempt to be
more courteous or diplomatic in their bid to keep the public away,
and yet others allude to ‘good’ that the landowner is doing that
will be undone by members of the public accessing the land. The
signs can take many physical forms—homemade and misspelt,
mass-produced plastic, polished and site-specific—but their
content is often capitalised and lacking in punctuation.
Etymologically, something private (from the Latin privatus)
is something ‘set apart’, set apart from that which is public, of
the people. The act of defining this thing set apart is an act of
raising boundaries, an act of dividing, of othering. These signs
are a stand-in for the landowner themselves … they are the
landowner’s proxy, sited around the perimeter of a property
alerting the passer-by that they should not cross a boundary.
Currently in England access to nature is a hot topic and the Right
to Roam movement is gaining followers, according to their figures
92% of England is out of bounds to the public (due to ancient laws
of ownership).
Through this body of work, I am interested in exploring the
history and politics of the land ownership that begets these
signs. I’m also interested in the language and aesthetics of these
symbols of land ownership, along with the dynamics of what this
ownership does to the countryside in terms of spatial division and
perception. My work is taking a number of forms, including my own
signs, artist’s books, multiples and soundworks. I intend to have
an exhibition of the series … watch this space (and/or my
Instagram feed) for news!