Simon Moreton’s Where?: Blurring Disparate Perspectives

Simon Moreton’s zine-turned-book Where? is concerned with the convergence of personal trauma and landscapes through psychogeographical practices. Chronicling the protagonist’s exploration of Titterstone Clee Hill in Shropshire and its surrounding areas, Moreton’s work captures his physical and mental return to childhood undertaken to reconcile the grief of his father’s passing. Where? exemplifies rural exploration as a material act of remembrance, wherein each step re-engages with past experiences embedded within the landscape. Through the use of magical realism, Moreton blurs the lines between memory and place, as well as between fact and fiction, portraying the hill not only as a geographical location but also as a topography reminiscent of personal and collective histories. This case study discusses how the zine acts as an archive of these local narratives, creating authenticity by merging various media—texts, images and maps—that assemble a multidimensional experience of space. Moreton’s approach to the zine-as-archive underscores its role in documenting psychogeographical experiences, reflecting a journey that is both literally walked and metaphorically constructed through the interplay of memory, trauma and landscape.