#deeptopography

[groundbite]

I’m Petra - meaning rock, stone. Earth sign - Capricorn. From a father who always had his hands in the soil. I am interested in hiraeth, interested in the land. Interested in its gravitational pull even when we have long left the land that we love. Interested in what effect the ground beneath us has on us when we’re above it. 

I am drawn to the trees that root into the land and the buildings that are rooted in with their own tendrils of steel. I am drawn to the power of place. The electric charge of the ground beneath us and the ways in which we play with it, whether knowingly or not.

In 2010 I began a Masters in Urban Studies, prompted by the discovery of Rem Koolhaus’ Delirious New York that posits New York “as the arena for the terminal stage of western civilisation”. Prompted by my intrigue at imagining what was held in the ground of what had been before. What pockets of information still resided in the sediment. In the patina, the residue. I was gripped by ‘deep topography’ but had no name for it yet.

In 2012 I started a business, KERB, that was all about the power of the concrete of the city to act as a platform, leveller and stage for the street food made and sold on it, and the street life that emerged from this.

In 2014 I spent 3 months in New Orleans, plunged into the city’s second line culture and was struck by the emphasis placed on footwork - on the feet’s connection and ease with the ground beneath, denoting connection to place and a currency that can only be felt. It denotes an ease with your body and the stomping out of your feelings, ownership, energy, joy on your own ground, making it sacred.

The ground is where it’s at. It’s where the energy transfers from underneath us , through our bodies, directing us, charging us, making us feel HOME.