2013
Tessa Zettel
Ink and watercolour on paper. 50 x 38 cm.
Baadlands: An Atlas of Experimental Cartography, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney
Panoramic Sketch from the Summit of Yurt Empire was an attempt to represent an ambitious and speculative project in development, Yurt Empire (a collaboration involving 22 other architects, designers, theorists and artists), both as a whole and as a set of relations. Using the circular panorama as a vehicle from which to figuratively and literally survey the project, the drawing marks out its conceptual summit and key features of its cultural topography. It borrows from extant documents: an early map of the project’s proposed site, a computer-generated design from a local government report, and a 19th century panoramic sketch from atop a mountain.
With these spatial narratives overlaid and then transcribed by hand, information is lost or distorted and unexpected connections emerge. The legend, adapted from the official council map, indicates real structural categories as well as hinting at a taxonomy of the project’s thematic concerns and methodology.