‘Viewing the Landscape’: Views from Expatria, Landscape Traditions and Staying Outside

Abstract

The creative research project Views from Expatria: Photographing Place and the Self in transience by Dr Ioannis Galanopoulos Papavasileiou examines human displacement, identity, the role of place and its relationship to the transient condition of being in ‘Expatria’. The project uses extensively the concepts ‘view,’ ‘landscape,’ and ‘place.’ In photography, art, and contemporary theory there is a history of conflict, convergence, and misappropriation about these concepts, which has informed the creation of the works. This article complicates the concepts and situates them within the practice-based project. The concept ‘view of place’ is revisited and reinstated as significant in contemporary setting and practice and examined side-by-side with the highly complex term, landscape. The term ‘view of place’ is chosen against older modalities of place representation in search of a more unrestricted definition that houses the hybrid studio practices embedded in Views from Expatria project.