hidden hollow

Hidden Hollow

by

Matthew W. Broadhead

Hidden Hollow

Contents

Introduction: page 6-7

Hidden Hollows: The First Visit: page 8-15

Hidden Hollows: The Second Visit: page 16-27

Interlude: page 28-32

Hidden Hollows: The Third Visit: page 33-56

Artifacts: page 57-78

Hidden Hollow began with a promising idea and grew into something bigger. I visited the derelict area once and through curiosity I revisited and explored the inside of the building.

My final outcome for this project is my 3rd and final visit to this very mysterious place.

When people ask me what it is about dereliction that interests me as an artist, I usually say that for me they symbolize the failure of man’s dream to maintain what we build and that

the haunting shells are more than the sum of their parts. I was fond of exploring as a young child, with a fearless heart that believed in adventure. As a psychogeographer now, the “Hidden Hollow” project was a dérive. A dérive is when one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its

necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities. Knabb, Ken, ed. (1995). Situationist

International Anthology. Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets.

This project brought out in me the innate beauty of curiosity from within me. Picasso once said, “It took me a few years to paint like Raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child”. I find this is very true, because for many of us it is hard to overcome the conditioning of

everyday pressures of society, as well as our complex personalities. I have a belief everybody is innately curious, and I want my audience to be enticed by my exhibit. The

foundation of the project is the photographs, all done in black and white so they are timeless. To give this project what it needed for my audience to respond to it better and

interact with it, I prepared my own custom installation for the Hidden Hollow: Third Visit exhibition. I designed and built my own museum themed plinth to present my discovery,

and a custom frame to house all of the prints as a sequence.

The first artist that inspired me after the second visit to inspire my third and final visit is definitely Jon Crispin and the suitcases from the Willard Lunatic Asylum. The way a

whole life could be contained within a case really stretched the boundaries of my thinking.

I compared the experience of entering the derelict zone with entering another plane of consciousness, called esotericism. I then considered how this plane of consciousness

could allow me to connect with my own past existences. When someone reaches enlightenment, I assume they come back into the world with what they gained cogni-

tively. That is what my metal box with the artifacts inside represents.

Belief is of great importance for this project. What makes it interesting for viewers is that in this complex world we live in it could happen. Anything is possible. Each object represents me in the sense I gathered them out of curiosity, and the exhibition is

assemblage in the sense that before the objects were singular, but together the context strengthened them as artifacts and gave them new life. The artist that inspired the realism side of this project is Simon Fujiwara, and his work that created fictional histories loosely

based on real life discoveries.

The most important feature of this work is that it is very personal, but aspects of it are relatable to different people who see the work. It is a visualization of my life and

imagination, and I feel it proves there are no boundaries in life but the ones we make ourselves.

Hidden Hollows: The First Visit

Layby

Unknown Location Hasselblad 500 C/M

First Photograph Unknown Location Hasselblad 500 C/M

Original Entrance, Overgrown Unknown Location Hasselblad 500 C/M

Bed of Leaves Unknown Location

Hasselblad 500 C/M

From a Distance Unknown Location Hasselblad 500 C/M

Two a Minute #1 Unknown Location Hasselblad 500 C/M

Hidden Hollows: The Second Visit

My Return

High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M

Kodak Tri-X 400 ISO Film

How I See Barriers High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


The Walkway (Passage) High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


The Bridge High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Step Inside Yourself High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Graveyard High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Living Room #1 High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Bedroom #2 High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Hallway #3 High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Arrowhead #4 High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Monolith #5 High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M


Interlude

Untitled #1 High Bullen Landfill

Hasselblad 500 C/M 80mm with 400 iso colour film

Foundation High Bullen Landfill


Do Not Enter the Containers High Bullen Landfill


Hidden Hollows: The Third Visit

Cairn

High Bullen Landfill Hasselblad 500 C/M 150mm Carl Zeiss lens

Dismantle #1 High Bullen Landfill

Hasselblad 500 C/M 150mm Carl Zeiss lens

Dismantle #3


Dismantle #4


Digging Implement High Bullen Landfill


Gouge


Peeling Back the Skin High Bullen Landfill


Untitled


Untitled #2


Untitled #3


Soil Between My Fingers


Discovery


Lifting


Struggling


Unlocking


Opening


Another Life High Bullen Landfill


Through the Window of Ruin High Bullen Landfill


Artifacts

Old Style Ginger Beer

Car boot Hooper Struve & Co Ltd.

London And Brighton

Pewter Candlestick Holder Grandparent’s, Buckland Brewer

War Period Flyer “Save Sugar” High Bullen Landfill

Victorian Studio Portrait Brighton

OXO Recipe Book Side 1

High Bullen Landfill

OXO Recipe Book Side 2


Bible Garage clearout across the road from me

High Bullen

We Are Seven Late 1800’s book


Three Nuns Tobacco Tin, Old fashioned key, and four Pennies 1900 - 1940


Three Nuns Tobacco Tin High Bullen Landfill

Turban Fruits

Side 1 Torn out recipe


Turban Fruits

Side 2 Torn out recipe


Alice Through the Looking Glass Book

Side 1 1890’s First Edition

Boot sale

Alice Through the Looking Glass Book

Side 2 1890’s First Edition

Boot Sale

Betta Club Cheese Cutout 1930’s


The Key North Devon Landfill

My Great Grandfather Old photo archive

High Bullen

Side 1 Letter 1930’s


Side 2 Recipe 1930’s


hidden hollow

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