Breaking Ground is work developed and located in the landscape and explores concepts of becoming through processes that reflect particular characteristics of Farnham Heath. The commoners of the heath once cut the heather turf for fuel. Though no longer in practice, turf cutting remains an important component responsible for shaping the unique conditions of the land and its habitat. The people of the commons dug every third turf and staggered the rows to create a chequerboard effect. This maintained their resource for future use, enabling the heather to replenish over time. Taking care not to strip the land bare and leave behind a sandy barren wasteland, the workers also facilitated the means for the habitat to continue their existence in the heathland and to benefit from this particular form of land management.

Implying a positive relationship between nature and human consumption signified possibilities for man and wildlife to coexist in harmony. Keen to understand this relationship, the work set out to mimic the historical practice of turf cutting as a key method from which to build the work and to gain knowledge of the land. Utilising the chequerboard effect, the structure from which each turf was extracted became the guide for the work to unfold into. Creating pattern and form in the landscape, the excavated material left cuts in the earths surface to construct a grid of negative spaces. As a consequence positive and regular shapes emerged and provided the building blocks from which to create form. Neither adding nor removing material, the negative spaces, formed two monuments to a unique landscape. Reflecting the management of land lost to the contemporary world, Breaking Ground alludes to a desire to maintain heathland and acknowledges its characteristics vital for specific habitat to survive.