A Line Made by Walking – Tim Robinson’s cartographic practice as an emergence from Land Art

Abstract

This essay traces the connections between the Land Art practice of Timothy Drever in London from the 1960s and his deep mapping practice as Tim Robinson from the 1980s. By connecting these practices this essay posits that his deep mapping practice is an emergence from the Land Art movement which was a popular art movement in both the US and Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Making this connection is important as it goes further than dissecting Tim Robinson’s use of space as a medium throughout his work as an artist and a cartographer. It shows that his preoccupations with space originated in a specific art world zeitgeist. Not only are his use of the maps and writings of the maps therefore a logical conclusion and evolution away from the questions posed by Land Art movements, but his work can also be used as a way to problematise and question the presumptions made by an art world which fetishized the use of rurality without a genuine connection with it. His early use of deep mapping can therefore trace its lineage to Land Art but was able to evolve past this empty appropriation of rural aesthetics.