During my attendance of the Design West Summer School in 2023, one of the project briefs outlined the objective of creating a piece that uncovers the interwoven relationship between landscapes and objects, with a specific emphasis on Connemara.

When I arrived in Letterfrack, I began researching the area with an ethnographic approach. On my journey I was met with my first stack of turf - held down by fishing nets - backdropped by the sea. One side of my family are fishermen and the other are farmers. In my experience, these cultures and the objects associated are separate.

I approached this brief by documenting the intertwined relationship of land and sea objects in Letterfrack and the surrounding areas. I collected data through photography, video and sound with the intent of mapping the overlap.

Visual theorist and cultural critic Johanna Drucker suggests that we reconsider how we approach the representation of data, such as mapping. Drucker calls to incorporate ambiguity in the design of information with the intention of proposing unresolved mapping to re-present it’s quality as a construct.

The zine is a collection of photographed objects associated with land and sea. I chose single colour black ink throughout for cohesiveness and to highlight the mark-making. The zine acts as data visualisation of the documented sites.

Cartographer John Pickles suggests that “A map is never fully formed; it is produced and reproduced every time a user engages with it. It’s not a product but a process.” The zine is not bound and can be manipulated by the user. This calls upon mapping as an ongoing process.

The zine is contained by a bellyband. The bellyband is comprised of strips of typographically mapped objects relating to land and sea and their interwoven relationship. This demonstrates another way of representing the visualisation of data and mapping as interpretation.

An audio mapping of sites in nearby vicinity accompanies the zine. The sites include men mending nets at a harbour, grading on an oyster farm, cattle grazing on land and sheep sheering.