Along the Ash Road
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Between the passions of cities
and pale towns
lie unrequited distances
empty stretches
of unnamed landscape
curving and lifting
in a sleep of light
where the soul travels
far out into wide
fields and wilderness.
‘Interstate’ by James Griffin in an article reprinted from the Federal Highway Administration's Summer 1996
Vol. 60· No. 1 issue of Public Roads.
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Project Narrative : See below after images.
Along the Ash Road
Through a dark landscape of black earth and ash the fragile road makes its way over rather than through Icelandic landscape, and has a tenuous hold up on it. Bleak foreboding landscape can soon change to a bright and uplifting light drenched panorama, whilst always retaining a fragile and stunning beauty.
Travelling along the ash road I passed this ever-changing landscape, where contemporary living rubs shoulders with ancient myth, the narrative of the sagas, and the still-changing geological history. The winter journey along the south coast became an unfolding story of adaptation to a harsh environment, difficult tracks with roads and bridges displaced by water and melting glacier. Economic conditions have also had a physical effect on the landscape with frequent or abandoned services and farmhouses, rubbing shoulders with still empty newly built houses.
The series of images express my experience of passing over this landscape in swiftly changing weather conditions, dark threatening sky changing to bright horizontal sunlight, and in winds which can lift small rocks to hurl across ones path. The tenuous hold man has on this often remote and sparsely populated landscape is emphasised by the difficulties of communication and access, with roads disappearing towards the horizon across the vast black plains of old or recent lava flows, abandoned buildings and remote working farms.