Whilst on a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Bellagio, Italy the artist meticulously recorded her experience through photography, text and video to create an installation that takes us on a disembodied journey through the labyrinthine gardens and ruins overlooking Lake Como.

The passage of time, light, and people is central to this work where location and landscape become devices to explore enclosure and isolation - both physical and psychological states.

Intersecting paths open out into seemingly impossible locations, mysterious doors set into the rock reveal secret passageways, and as the cicadas call, a sense of languor gives way to obsession and an unraveling of sanity.

During the residency Mortimer mapped the grounds through thousands of still photographs, recorded each day's weather through time-lapse photography and further documented the location with video. Her diary forms the narrative base of the work, a confessional and intimate text recording a personal response to the isolation and beauty of this place.

The residency was taken in collaboration with Boston-based artist Robert Arnold. At Bellagio they worked together to create a collaborative bank of image and ideas with the intention of developing separate but linked responses to the residency.

Images: Roz Mortimer, Robert Arnold, Jeremy Williams
Script: Roz Mortimer

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