In Our Element Arts Project
What is In Our Element ?
- It is the strategic led art programme for CWPS
- It is artist led, originally devised and created by the Somerset artists' group 'Genius Locii'
- It is an integral part of the biodiversity and education team of the CWPS
- It enables artists to work with and contribute to a unique landscape, ecology and community
- It is developed and managed by Lesley Greene and John Charles Kimberley
- It is funded by the Arts Council
In our Element working on Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund project Sept 07 - March 08
In Our Element is working in collaboration with the Cotswold Water Park Society Team to bring artists of all kinds to the “Reedbeds, Access and Community Involvement” Aggregates Sustainability Levy Fund programme. Artists were selected from an open competition organised in the autumn 2007 from which ten commissions were offered.
The major commission for the ASLF programme is an artist designed bird hide.
Reed Hide is an octagonal structure of wood, rammed earth, and woven hazel, incorporating bat boxes in the extraordinary roof, and decorated internally with murals of the water birds that can be found locally. The hide sits amongst the newly planted reedbeds at Cleveland Lakes. It has been designed by Stroud based artist Helen Shackleton and is being constructed in collaboration with engineer Lloyd Turner.
As part of the community involvement programme a group of Year 4 children from Ann Edwards Primary School, South Cerney helped to create the rammed earth (mud) walls for the new hide. Another group of Year 3 children from St Sampson’s School, Cricklade worked in collaboration with Cirencester poet Marcus Moore to inspire the interpretation on the approach to the hide with a specially commissioned poem celebrating nature.
Four formal sculptures have been commissioned:
Biodome
Community based Willow Sculpture for Lakeside designed and led by community artist John Charles Kimberley. The community involvement includes Young Offenders (disaffected young people) from South Cerney as well as a group of young people from Gloucester on the “Connexions” activity programme, and a drop in event for villagers of South Cerney over the Easter weekend.
Access to biodiversity is an integral aspect of the Biodome’s design, and it is sited to encourage people to sit and overlook the shallow lake edge. This has been constructed as part of the Biodome landscape, to provide the optimum conditions for the Lesser Bearded Stonewort, a rare species of carophyte for which Lake 12 has SSSI status.
Bitterns
Wiltshire based artist Julieann Worrall Hood chose to mark the entrance to Sustrans Route 45 on the Spine Road, near South Cerney as part of her submission to the ASLF programme.
Her design takes the important Biodiversity Action Plan target species - the Bittern - as a key image for the public access route (following Julieann’s proposal the image of the Bittern has been further simplified by Steve Roberts to be used in the directional pavement logos).
In a departure from her usual work in willow forms, Julieann has designed two 3m high cut out and fabricated stylised steel birds. She has then painted them using the browns of the bittern feathers, with gold spots as a reference to the glow - worms found along the route in the gravel of the railway track and road edges. She has also created a smaller Bittern that will be installed at Waterhay Car Park at the other end of the public access route.
These elegant sculptural birds mark a significant development in Julieann’s work as an artist. Julieann has always admired Picasso’s cut out and folded paper sculptures. This commission gave her the opportunity to work on from that historic inspiration in a piece of public art.
Song Pole
An ode to absence – a temporary artwork addressing biodiversity issues by artist group Liminal and poet Larry Lynch (Route 45)
Big Willow
Woven willow nest form (temporary) by artist Laura Ellen Bacon on Sustrans National Cycle Route 45.
'Swarming Form'
Laura Ellen Bacon is one of the UK’s most innovative young artists working with willow. Nests and cocoon like forms inspire her, observations from nature inform her.
Along Route 45 Laura has chosen the Water Park’s largest willow tree in which to create a new work. She says “I feel that the willow tree is so wonderfully big, and old, that it appears powerful, but its age and strength have disguised the flow of the willow itself - still evident in the flow of the bark. I'd like to portray the flow and power of the growth in the tree”.
Laura has enclosed the willow with a curving woven willow form that swells and shallows, appearing to move as a life force.
This sculpture is an integral part of the Aggregates Sustainability Levy funded programme “Reedbeds, Access and Community” but at the same time sustains and enhances “In Our Element’s” WILLOW theme, drawing our attention to the remarkable qualities of willows in the Water Park.
For more information, go to BBC Radio 4 Open Country, for the programme broadcast on 29/03/08, in which Laura Ellen Bacon talks about her work and the Water Park.
Laura Ellen Bacon is running a 2 day workshop on Landscape Willow at the Stroudwater International Textile Trust Festival Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 May in Stratford Park Stroud.
Contact www.stroudwatertextiles.org.uk for tickets
Other commissions
Quarry Creations
A new interactive website created by 9 year old children from the nearby school of Ashton Keynes, has been commissioned from and guided by James Ecendance, graphic designer from i2in, a Cheltenham based company. This website, Quarry Creations, explores the impact and benefits of the quarrying industries in relation to local communities and their landscape through a special game.
Interpretation
Stroud based artists group “Walking the Land and the Design Co-op” have been commissioned to develop a series of innovative interpretation signs for the project. These, developed in the main by group member Steve Roberts, will form the framework and context for an exciting research project to be developed in collaboration with Knowledge West and the Universities of Gloucestershire and Bath to investigate the potential for digital interpretative strategies throughout the Water Park.
Picnic benches
Stroud based artists/craftspeople Malcolm Martin and Gaynor Dowling have been commissioned to design a prototype bespoke bench with support from and manufacture by Aggregate Industries. The bench celebrates the qualities and versatility of the aggregates industry in the Water Park.
Willow artist creates woven splendour
Patrick Dougherty, the internationally renowned willow artist, has created a truly breathtaking willow structure at Keynes Country Park, near Cirencester. Supported by Lesley Greene and JohnCharles Kimberley of the In Our Element Arts team from the Cotswold Water Park Society, Patrick worked with over 50 people, including professional artists, basket weavers, amateurs and local teenagers. All played a significant role in helping to shape the sculpture, guided by the creativity and imagination of Patrick.
The structure, which incorporates six pollarded willows and three coppiced willow trees, has been collectively named Keynes Twist, a name which aptly describes the unusual spectacle which greets walkers as they venture down the footpath along the west side of Lake 31.
Patrick Dougherty said, at the end of his visit, “This has been a great opportunity for local artists to be inspired and to think about how we apply a natural locally sourced material to a space to give a sense of place. The important thing has been the mark making, like drawing a line on paper, but instead forming lines to suggest movement and expression through willow rods.
The structure will be maintained throughout the coming year through a variety of ongoing projects. The whole project has been made possible through funding from Arts Council England, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Gloucestershire County Council and Lower Mill Estate.
River Churn Project
Artist Jony Easterby has been chosen from an open national artist’s competition to join the biodiversity team on the first research and community stage of the River Churn Project. He will be working with the Society’s ecologists and local people to undertake an audit of the River Churn, its landscape and ecology. We believe this is the first project of its kind in the UK. This unique project has support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; further support will be sought for phase 2.
Project update March 2008
As part of the In Our Element arts project, artist Jony Easterby was recently chosen to work with the biodiversity team of the Cotswold Water Park Society on an ecological audit of the river Churn.
He joined the Cotswold Water Park’s Director of Conservation Simon Pickering along the river Churn to take part in a water vole survey during the summer. Following this experience, Jony then took to the river much as the water mammals might, floating, swimming and walking the river, understanding the river’s special character, how the river eddied and flowed, bringing brash and trash downstream:
Jony described his experience as follows:
“Inspired by a combination of Roger Deakin’s ‘Waterlog’ and Burt Lancaster in ‘The Swimmer’, I set out to document the river Churn from the perspective of the surface of the water in the same way an otter or water vole might see it.
On entering Cirencester, the flow of the River Churn as well as its ecology and swim-ability is bought to a rude standstill as it led through culverts, underground tunnels and forced through sluice gates. The river seems ignored and pushed to one side as though its presence was not really welcome.
Forced onto dry land I found myself wandering around the town in a wet suit looking for the various channels. Understandably like a fish out of water, I attracted some attention and a few questions. What better way to engage with local people and break the ice than to dress in questionable clothing and wander the town -soon intrigued people came up to me. Accompanied by a similarly clad camera man we eventually ended the day drinking sloe gin with Mrs Rankin of Rankin Taylor Antiques on Dollar Street listening to tales of 3ft floods washing the labels off all the wine in the cellar as the Churn reminded people of its true potential.
Why do we not celebrate this meandering water course in Cirencester like many cities do? Perhaps its un-navigable, slow moving flow has never allowed it the status afforded to the great rivers.
The filming and documentation will continue over the next few months, and in a true reflection of Ned Sherill in ‘The Swimmer’ we will eventually arrive at the river’s end as leaves fall from the trees and we move into the Autumn months. Further research into river surveys has bought to light the practice of ‘night surveying for trout’ as they appear to be unflustered by torch light and snorkels. We will attempt this later in the month!”
This unique research will culminate in three special events – a day in which a group of artists from all over the country will come together to discuss rivers and share their work on the environment, a public event in which the River Churn will be experienced – in a very different way – by the public through an artist’s eyes, and an exhibition.
This project is supported by the Cotswold Strategic Partnership and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. “In Our Element” is supported by Arts Council England and Gloucestershire County Council.
Digital Arts
‘In Our Element’ has developed a partnership with Gloucestershire Digital Arts Forum to commission a short film. London based film maker and artist Lou Hamilton has been awarded the commission. A narrative exploring the Water Park ecology, its lakes and sports activities, forms the brief for the project. The film will be shown in the Cotswold Water Park in the future, plus we intend to submit it to the increasingly popular Short Film Festivals.
For further information email Lesley Greene or John Charles Kimberley at inourelement@waterpark.org
