This project aimed to challenge the implied objective truth of the map and the archive as records of place, focusing specifically on Portsmouth, an island city in the UK. Portsmouth fully occupies Portsea Island, whose coastline has been significantly altered over time by both human and non-human factors. Similarly, Portsmouth’s role as a centre of naval power has fluctuated, mirroring the decline and loss of an empire and the certainty it once provided. The work attempts to capture this state of flux and fragility by forming an intentionally ambiguous, incomplete and unreliable archive.

The work explores four locations, arbitrarily chosen on the north, east, south and west coasts of the island.

Through visiting these locations, certain features presented themselves which seemed to say something about ways in which we relate to one another and our surroundings; play (a rope swing at Hilsea Lines), nurture (an artificial rock pool at Great Salterns), protect (a submarine barrier off Southsea beach), and communicate (remains of a pier support near the former site of a signalling station at Tipner). Play, nurture, protect and communicate - four responses we might make when the world lays a challenge at our feet and threatens our own personal shores.

Each of these features were mapped using photogrammetry - a process that seemed to encapsulate both the certainty and fallibility of the archive. One hundred photographs were taken of each feature from different angles. Once they were combined to produce a virtual 3D object, inconsistencies, assumptions and gaps were revealed. The same process was then applied to the physical archive itself, revealing new and mysterious imaginary forms and landscapes. These can be seen in the animation shown here with the archive, accompanied by a layered soundtrack of field recordings from each location.

How reliable can any archive be in capturing the essence of a such fluid and contested subject matter? Absences and gaps certainly formed a theme and their presence is felt throughout. But does what is missing have more weight than what is included? And does an archive say more about the archivist or their subject?

Rob French

August 2025