Embodying Landscape: Spatial Narratives of Becoming-Artist on the Islands of the Salish Sea

Abstract

Recent literature in cultural geography has turned its attention to the enactment of landscape through performance. Drawing upon the insights of new cultural geography and non-representational theory, this thesis examines the performative enactments of “place” through the production of landscape representations on the Islands of the Salish Sea. In particular, I adopt a narrative approach to consider how the embodied and discursive performances of becoming-artist and the enactment of landscape are co-constituted. Through a comparative case study of four Islands in the Salish Sea – San Juan, Lopez, Salt Spring, and Pender Islands – the current study provides an embodied account of the practices of landscape representation based upon fieldwork, participant observation, and 13 semi-structured interviews with landscape artists on the Islands. This is followed by a thematic analysis of recurring imagery in landscape paintings with a focus on representations of the rural scene, property relations, nationalism, and “unpeopled” landscapes. I conclude that landscape representations are both discursive and experiential in their performative enactments of place.