Jefferson Campbell-Cooper

The Trail
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Mapping and Burying a 10 Mile Hike, Big Bend, Texas 2003
14 colour photographs, 11" x 14" each

A series of colour photographs capture the process of documenting a hike by means of sketching and mapping. Then the map was buried at a point of no further exploration, to return only with the photographs of this process. This is an exercise in the role of documentation and the interpretation of an experience. 








































Kitchen Mesa 2004
Juniper and dowel
This ongoing body of work interprets a walk, a hike, or even a trailway from the experience of that particular hike. Materials collected on the hike are assembled to distill a three-dimensional map from the landscape from where the materials came. These works are a scale representation of their namesake hikes. Of interest is the ability of a line to define a landscape, by revealing the features of the topography through our feet.

Serpent Lake 2004
Juniper, cedar and wire















Branchline 2006
Cedar, cement, iron rod

In this large scale map the wood (cedar) is an accurate model of the Grand River and the Credit River water sheds, including the cement work for the Lake Belwood flood control reservoir. The iron rod is the Credit Valley Railway branchline from Orangeville to the terminus at Elora, abandoned in 1988, now a hike/bike trail. Grades and curves are accurate to original railway line.