Journey Home

‘Journey Home’ is another interesting way of visually portraying a day to day journey that otherwise seems the norm and dreary for the subject. Journey Home is "a visual diary of a series of ritualistic journeys made over a five month period between London Waterloo station and Ryde Pier Head on the Isle of Wight, drawing upon Waterman’s experience of living in both urban and rural environments and the tension between how these two cross cultures is explored and represented by the transitional time and space of her monthly journey home to visit her family.

Whilst the destinations and paths of each journey are similar, each one is a unique, individual experience. Although a sense of routine is omnipresent - with recurring images linking all the journeys together - different exterior elements are constantly changing; the weather, the people around her, her mood, the things she notices out of the carriage window, the book she is reading and the clothes she is wearing. As time passes and the seasons change, the passing scenery beyond the window seems to disappear as autumn approaches. When this occurs the images begin to focus more upon the interior of the train carriage itself, her fellow passengers, the ghostly reflections in the window and the fleeting illuminated station platforms".

This project by Waterman also ties in with the notion of the conscious and sub-conscious mind. When we religiously make the same journey our mind tends to switch off as we become comfortable within the environment we are travelling in. However, by doing so the observations we make become blurred, almost non-existent as our minds feel that we do not need to be aware of the now so familiar surroundings. This is often the case for most individuals within their day to day tasks/journeys and I feel this is why a lot of my friends do not notice things that go on around them. I want to examine and play on my skill that my mind seems to be aware a lot more of the time and does not seem to fall into this state of sub conscious viewing. Therefore, I have set myself the task of recording via photos, sketches, notes my journey walking through town, walking through the university campus and the car journey from home to university. I will then gather, analyse and compare my findings and see if I have a basis to form a project or whether a more vigorous, detailed documentation is needed.