On Place

Place. Dean, T. Millar, J. (2005) Thames and Hudson.

Jeremy Millar: So how can artists begin to deal with it as a subject then, this thing that is so unknowable?

Tacita Dean: Because they can work in a way that is associative and non-verbal. They can use media and techniques that can describe a place tangentially, for example with sound or narrative, or through history or invention. The artist can evoke a place that will always only exist as a memory of another place in the mind of the viewer, because I think you need to have visited a place before you can really know it, and then only you will know it in that way. That is why place is so personal and intangible, but at the same time universally understood.