David Cotterrell to launch Hill33 Autumn 2010
Hill 33 is a poetic sculpture, which is ‘in’ the landscape and ‘made of’ the landscape’. It will be created by the manipulation of the landscape, filled with local coal spoil and topped up by soil from the site itself. Taking the form of a pyramid, it has been designed to evoke a sense of wonder. It will nestle in the woodland and reach up to the trees that surround and partially conceal it, appearing as an enigmatic folly in the wood.
David began his research in the Forest of Dean in 2009, having just returned from living at Camp Bastion as a war artist. The camp is surrounded and protected by HESCO Concertainer units (a form of gabion structure) and their industrial presence echoed in his thoughts as he met people in the Dean. Here he heard stories of how Nelson commanded the oaks to be planted; how the remnants of war had been put down redundant mine shafts; and how freemining rights are a legacy of service during conflict. These thoughts informed his research for this significant new sculpture
The Sculpture Trail in the Summer…..
Summer is here, and we are delighted to be working with Fairgame Theatre and SVA on their Cultural Olympiad Project:
‘As I walked out…’ an eight week epic journey with four donkeys, chickens, carts, children, young people and of course artists walking across the six districts of Gloucestershire.
LATEST NEWS
The next and final camp will be at Miller’s Farm, Blakeney on Sat 14th and Sun 15th August.
Free art workshops will be led by Deborah Aguire Jones and Zoe Benbow 2-4pm on Saturday.
To book a place email: enquiries_fairgametheatre.com.
Deborah Aguirre Jones
Part Welsh, part Brazilian, Deborah Aguirre Jones is based in the South West of England. Internationally exhibited, Jones works with urban and rural landscapes through conversations, photography, sculpture and performance. She is currently involved with a building site in Bristol and an area of degraded peat bog in the Black Mountains of Mid Wales.What happens when I let go of this yearning for a place to belong?
What is an authentic connection with landscape?Travelling through the Forest of Dean with an image of home (a chair) on her back, Jones will have conversations with people, the forest, the donkeys and anything else she can talk to along the way about belonging and unbelonging. Mixing daydreams and delusions with history and folklore, she will play with ideas of authenticity and the rural idyll, making work that looks at itinerants experiences of geography, territory and identity. A workshop with Jones will play with where we are and how we mark our territories.
and Zoe Benbow
“As an artist and traveller I have explored remote corners of Europe with my drawing book and camera, yet like Robert Macfarlane in The Wild Places I recognise that wilderness exists between the seams of our everyday lives. In the context of the environmental crisis it is important to enjoy and document landscape closer to home.My large- scale oil paintings are evolved from landscape drawings made in situ. Drawing in landscape is a way of mapping and exploring and has the potential to question how we see the world and the nature of our relationship to it. During the walk, I will make a series of drawings exploring the sense of the landscape changing through time and will document the event in a group of intimate drawings of people and animals. My intention is to create a dialogue between the familiar and everyday and the landscape about us.
My workshops will explore the physical nature of drawing and will begin with the idea that close-up detail in the landscape reflects the same quality as the wider view. The workshops will follow an active pace fostering experimentation and rapidly introducing new ideas, shifting the emphasis away from finished art work to help participants overcome drawing inhibitions. Loosening-up techniques borrowed from martial arts will be employed to facilitate lively group dynamics and help focus and ground ourselves within the environment. These workshops aim to equip participants with the confidence to return to the landscape to make drawings in their own time.
See their website for further information
Rebecca Hooper: student placement from The University of Gloucestershire
Rebecca installed two works discretely in locations along the Sculpture Trail, as part of a series of the displacement of eight, identical and anonymous, handmade bricks, in eight chosen locations around Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; depending upon a relationship between materials, buildings and/or the history of that area - see if you can spot them.
Echo by Annie Cattrell
Echo 2008
Annie Cattrell’s first public artwork, Echo is the most recent addition to the Sculpture Trail. Hyper-real and hyper-virtual, it is absolutely landscape and absolutely not landscape. Cast from 310 million year old rocks, it evokes a sense of the subterranean - touch it and discover the detail with your fingertips.
Echo celebrates the life of Jeremy Rees, one of the Sculpture Trail founders, as well as our 21st anniversary.
The Forest of Dean is one of the most ancient and beautiful woodland areas in the country, with a fascinating history. The Sculpture Trail is a fantastic way of exploring the area as well as to gain an understanding of its industrial past.Previously an area of mine-workings, the forest has been transformed by sculptures made by international artists, including David Nash, Cornelia Parker, Ian Hamilton-Finlay and Neville Gabie. The artworks provide a unique encounter with site-specific sculpture in a wonderful forest environment. The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust also host temporary events on the Trail, alongside commissioning new sculptures and working with communities.
22 years ago a vision by Martin Orrom sparked off the process - read it here
Archive videos of our high-attendance after dark audio & video events
