Issue 4 summer 2011

WWW.FermYNWOODs.CO.uK

Practice in PlaceArtists + Audience + environment

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We are continuing to develop the use of Sudborough Green Lodge as an arts, research and education laboratory by:

1 Taking a creative approach to the whole development and use of the site, allowing the unknown and unpredictable to occur.

2 Inviting multi-disciplinary artists working in a range of art forms to use the Lodge as a resource for research, experimentation, developing and testing ideas and producing new work.

3 Connecting urban culture with the rural landscape and rural culture with the urban landscape.

4 Using the site as a resource for educational work with children, young people and adults.

Since March, we have been hard at work with a team of volunteers, landscaping the area immediately around the Lodge. This has included removing glass and other rubbish from the site, digging up weeds and deep roots and removing large rocks and stones from old walls and outbuild-ings. We are currently preparing the soil for lawns and planting. Whilst working on the west side we saw and heard one of nature’s more amazing sights, as a swarm of honey bees circled in the air above us, then slowly started to gather around the queen bee, who was hovering just under the picnic bench. The bees, seemingly choreographed, slowly formed an animated ball around the

queen and we contacted a beekeeper to find a new home for them. Kenneth Martin, artist and care-taker of the site, has laid a traditional Hawthorn hedge along the southern side of the garden, opening up the views across the fields, which bloss-omed along its entire length in the spring. The hardcore has also been removed from the southside, making way for a new lawned area with hammocks. Later in the summer, we will be laying out the cut hay from the SSSI wild flower meadows that border the garden so we can harvest the seeds to plant later. This way we ensure that the balance of species remains consistent. We have discovered a lovely area of herringbone block paving, which will be used as a site for outdoor events, such as film screenings and BBQs. Future plans also include an allotment style garden growing plants for artistic use, such as pigment making.

We are looking for more volunteers to help us to continue this work and join our working parties. Activities are suitable for all ages and abilities and families are very welcome. If you are able to help and can spare a few hours please contact Kenneth Martin; kenneth@fermynwoods.co.uk Future dates include: 30 July and 13 August 2011.

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eXHIBITION & ArTIsT LeD WALKs

eNCOuNTers Journeys

through language and landscape

From Fermyn Woods Country Park to Lyveden New Bield

Featuring work byJitish Kallat

Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen/Paula Boulton

rebecca Lee Graeme miller

shane Waltener Caroline Wright

And installations by students from

meadowside Primary school and Keely mills

Artist led walks byrebecca Lee Alison Lloyd sue stewart

ENCOUNTERS, journeys through language and landscape explores our personal relationship with the environment through a series of temporary artist installations and interventions, performances and artist led walks, along a three mile route from Fermyn Woods Country Park to Lyveden New Bield, as part of Northamptonshire’s Cultural Olympiad Igniting Ambition programme.

eNCOuNTers

From Fermyn Woods Country Park to Lyveden New Bield 6 August–18 september 2011 Open everyday, 11am–5pm Closed 5, 6, 12, 13 september 2011 at Lyveden New Bield

Specially commissioned and existing work uses visual, written and spoken language to make physical and conceptual links between the rural landscape and the places we create for ourselves. The works investigate how open spaces can become places full of meaning and how we develop a sense of belonging in unfamiliar places. Artists and poets will lead walks between the two sites, exploring the area’s local history, environment and culture through music, conversation and verse. The walk will take visitors through Fermyn Woods and along the historic Lyveden Way, which was restored and officially reopened in 2005 as part of the 400th anniversary of Lyveden New Bield. Lyveden New Bield, a National Trust property, was built by Sir Thomas Tresham, designed as a Garden Lodge, using symbolic Catholic leitmotifs. It was unfinished at the time of his death in 1605; his eldest son and heir was involved in the Gunpowder Plot and died in the Tower of London the same year.

Igniting Ambition, a Cultural Olympiad programme in the East Midlands, invests in projects and people that take the London 2012 Games as their inspiration to create once-in-a-lifetime cultural opportunities for audiences and communities. Igniting Ambition is funded by Legacy Trust UK, an independent charity set up to create a cultural and sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the European Regional Development Fund and the East Midlands Development Agency, with the support of Arts Council England and many others. Fermynwoods Contemporary Art gratefully acknowledges the support and assistance given by the staff at Lyveden New Bield and Fermyn Woods Country Park during the planning and realisation of this project

Journeys through language and landscape

Fermyn Woods Country Park (off A6116) near Brigstock Northamptonshire, NN14 3Hs Telephone 01536 373625 Free admission Car Park £2.50 per day see www.transportdirect.info for public transport

Lyveden New Bield (off Harley Way) Between Brigstock and Oundle Northamptonshire, Pe8 5AT Telephone 01832 205358 Free admission for National Trust members and Children Adult Ticket £4 Free Car Parking maps will be available at each venue and downloadable from our website

TeLLerVO KALLeINeN & OLIVer KOCHTA-KALLeINeN/

PAuLA BOuLTON

ENCOUNTERS will be launched by a performance by Corby Complaints Choir. Corby has joined Cairo, Hong Kong, New York and Tokyo to form its own Complaints Choir, based on a project initiated and developed by Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen. Paula Boulton has been working with local people to collect complaints and turn these into song lyrics. One song, featuring complaints about the rural environment, rural life and cul- ture will be performed at the Country Park and another song concerning people’s personal complaints will be performed at Lyveden. The songs will be recorded for visitors to the exhibi-tion. Visit www.complaintschoir.org for further information.

GrAeme mILLer

The opening weekend will provide an opportunity to experience Track, a participatory installation by Graeme Miller that throws the landscape through 90° and sets it in motion. Visitors are slowly moved on a journey along a 100 metre length of dolly track installed under the trees at Lyveden New Bield and invited to gaze upwards. They undergo a solitary, immersive experience as the landscape is transformed around them. Please note, due to the performative nature of this work, Track will be presented at Lyveden New Bield during the opening weekend only: Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 August, 11am–5pm.

eNCOuNTers

Track was created by Graeme miller and is produced by Artsadmin. Track is co-produced by entre Cour et Jardins and originally comm-issioned by home live art and Wandsworth Council Arts Team for The Shimmy 2010.

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JITIsH KALLAT

Jitish Kallat’s monumental work When will you be happy, installed at Lyveden New Bield, is one of a series of bone-text works through which the artist reflects on the human struggle.

However, the work is only legible from a distance, at close proximity it appears to be the remains of a huge creature from the past, held within the landscape. Kallat states, Even as the bone-text is evocative of death like a memento mori, it is actually a life- affirming call reminding one of the futility of living a life based on desire and disappointments.

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Journeys through language and landscape

CArOLINe WrIGHT

Caroline Wright’s work Untitled (believe), also sited at Lyveden, was created in response to the Buddhist principles and aesthetics of the Japanese tea ceremony. Four of these principles are spelt out in large neon letters; Tranquillity, Respect, Harmony and Purity. They literally reflect onto the walls and out through the open window as suggestive fragments of a poem withdrawing into itself (Ben Borthwick).

reBeCCA Lee

Rebecca Lee was an artist in residence at Sudborough Green Lodge during 2010 and used this research time to develop a new sound installation for ENCOUNTERS, which is sited within Fermyn Woods. Rebecca experienced the woods as a place for reflection and has explored why other people visit the woods and what they mean to them through the music and songs that convey their feelings about the forest. Lee states, Great Chorus explores the way in which music can fill in the gaps when words don’t work. A clearing will be filled with music that bridges those gaps for people when they’re walking in the woods.

Caroline Wright has created an audio guide to lead you from the Country Park to Lyveden New Bield. Please download the sound file from our website onto your phone or mP3 player to listen to as you follow the artist along her journey through a real and make-believe forest.

Visit the Artist Installations page in the Current Programme section of our site for details.

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eNCOuNTers

sHANe WALTeNer

Shane Waltener has created an arch by weaving from one tree branch to another, as if on a natural loom, dissecting the space through a lace fabric ‘plane’. The work frames a moment along the route in Fermyn Woods, inviting the viewer to consider how they move through and view their immediate environment. Shane will also be in residence during the exhibition, to create a new work in response to the agricultural landscape – architectural sized bobbin lace will meet urban graffiti.

meADOWsIDe PrImArY sCHOOL AND KeeLY mILLs

Ten students from Meadowside Primary School, in Burton Latimer, have been working with poet Keely Mills and the staff at Fermynwoods, as part of a Mighty Creatives programme designed to enable young people to act as consultants for arts organisations. The students have mapped the walk through drawing and text and have created a series of signs, which have been installed along the route.

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Journeys through language and landscape

WOrKsHOPs, TALKs & eVeNTs

Walking is… the principal means by which someone encountering a different neighbourhood or foreign landscape gets under its skin or gets to know the social, cultural and physical terrain. moving within different environments allows us to detect properties of sameness and difference and therefore form a comparative perspective and better understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the world.

Detours and Puzzles in the Land of the Living, Andrew Irving, University of Manchester

OPeNING eVeNT Free saturday 6 August 2011 1.30–4.00pm Hear the first performance by the Corby Complaints Choir and join the artists for the opening of ENCOUNTERS, journeys through language and landscape.

1.30pm, performance by Corby Complaints Choir at Fermyn Woods Country Park, followed by a guided walk to Lyveden New Bield. Approximately 3pm, performance by Corby Complaints Choir at Lyveden New Bield and refreshments in the Cottage Garden, followed by an opportunity to experience Track, by Graeme Miller. There will be a free minibus service between

the venues for those with difficulty walking.

All artist led walks will be from Fermyn Woods Country Park to Lyveden New Bield. Fermyn Woods Country Park Off A6116, near Brigstock Northamptonshire, NN14 3Hs 01536 373625 Lyveden New Bield, off Harley Way Between Brigstock and Oundle Northamptonshire, Pe8 5AT 01832 205358 Tickets £4 to cover the cost of admission to Lyveden New Bield Meet at Fermyn Woods Country Park. Free return transport will be provided to the park after the walk for those who wish.

sue sTeWArT Walking with Poetry 21 August 2011 2–4pm Poet and Creative Writing Fellow of Stirling University, Sue Stewart will lead a walk that makes connections between participants, walking, and the landscape through poetry. Listen to work by both contemporary and traditional poets and from Sue’s own repertoire, along the route. Through metaphor and the use of all our senses, create your own poetry in response to the environment.

ALIsON LLOYD The Contemporary Art of Walking 4 september 2011 2–4pm Alison Lloyd will tailor a walk between the two sites for people interested in art, landscape, writing, walking and conversation, providing a platform for participant’s contri-butions and ample opportunity to experience the woodland wildlife.

reBeCCA Lee Walking with Music 11 september 2011 2–4pm Take a walk through Fermyn Woods through someone else’s music. Join ENCOUNTERS artist Rebecca Lee, for a walk and listen to the music and songs that capture other visitors’ feelings about the woods.

CLOsING eVeNT Free 16 september 2011 5–7pm Join the artists from Interchange in a closing party for ENCOUNTERS. David Littler, Jo Roberts and Simon Woolham will share some of the music, sound work and songs they created during their time on the narrow boat, alongside musicians taking part in the ENCOUNTERS exhibition.

Artist led walks

OPeN ONLINe TWO

Dates 15 November 2011–14 November 2012 selectors George Barber and Matt Davenport

submissions Deadline 30 September 2011

We are really pleased to announce that George Barber – one of the artists from the first Open Online exhibition – is one of the selectors for our next online exhibition together with Matt Davenport, artist and Head of Media Arts at Broadway, Nottingham. For this year’s online exhibition we are looking for artists’ submissions of sound based work or visualisations of sound. Please request an application form by telephone 01832 733009 or email info@fermynwoods.co.uk. There are no application fees.

OPPOrTuNITY

OPeN ONLINe TWO

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Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Montague House Chancery Lane, Thrapston Northamptonshire NN14 4LN T +44 (0)1832 733009E info@fermynwoods.co.uk www.fermynwoods.co.uk Company Registered no. 5434735 Registered Charity no. 1122678