SUMMER 2018

THE FOREST IS THE MUSEUM

THE ARCHIVE OF THE TREES

ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE

THE OUTDOOR INSTITUTE OF ART

ASSOCIATE ARTISTS

DOCUMENT

WORK

STEAM POWER

FERMYNWOODS FRIDAYS The Forest is the Museum

Celebrating Fermynwoods Contemporary THE FOREST IS THE MUSEUM will feature artists Art’s 20th anniversary and the Forestry in residence at The Arches, a Fineshade Commission’s 100th, Fermynwoods will be Wood space currently being renovated by expanding their programme to Fineshade the Forestry Commission as a project space Wood, a natural habitat and ancient mixed and artist studio. The four residencies from broadleaf and conifer woodland, heritage site 2018 to 2020 will be Edwina Fitzpatrick, and leisure facility in , Justin Carter, Owl Project, plus Abigail 13 miles outside of . Lane and Lala Meredith-Vula.

Following an exclusive opening for FERMYNWOODS FRIENDS, The Arches will be launched at the end of summer 2018, coinciding with the culmination of the first of our artist residencies at Fineshade.

To become a FERMYNWOODS FRIEND please visit www.fermynwoods.org/friends or contact us on 01832 731257 or via [email protected].

For more news about our programme please sign up to our electronic mailing list via www.fermynwoods.org/mailing-list. The Archive of the Trees EDWINA FITZPATRICK

Our first artist in residence at Fineshade Wood Edwina Fitzpatrick has been investigating the forest as a living archive that traces human activity in relation to the landscape.

Assisted by Swansea University’s UK Oak Project, Edwina has collected and analysed very small cores from healthy, mature trees in Fineshade Wood. Without harming the trees, the cores reveal the tree’s age, growing patterns, past weather conditions and stresses such as diseases. In effect, they are the tree’s own archive: each specimen reveals its ‘autobiography’.

Working with foresters, regular visitors to Fineshade Wood and local resources, Edwina is creating THE ARCHIVE OF THE TREES – temporary sited artworks that combine Forestry Commission tree records with historical archives and local anecdotes about the weather, with the images of each tree’s Fineshade Wood secret interior archive. Near Corby NN17 3BB

These can be found both within Fineshade July-October 2018 Wood itself from July 2018 and within the new Arches project space following its launch. Edwina has also documented the project with an extensive timeline of Fineshade Wood at the project website www.archiveofthetrees.co.uk Left: Anna Elizabeth, The Arches, 2018; Right Edwina Fitzpatrick, collecting core samples, 2018. Artists in Residence EDWINA FITZPATRICK JUSTIN CARTER OWL PROJECT ABIGAIL LANE & LALA MEREDITH-VULA OWL PROJECT (JANUARY-JUNE 2019) Owl Project is a collaborative group of artists consisting of Simon Blackmore, Antony Hall and Steve Symons. They work with wood and electronics to fuse sculpture and sound art, creating music-making machines, interfaces and objects, which intermix pre- steam and digital technologies.

Drawing on influences such as 70s synthesiser culture, DIY woodworking, and current digital crafts, the resulting artwork is a quirky and intriguing critique of the allure and production of technology. Owl Project make a distinctive range of musical and sculptural instruments that question human interaction with computer interfaces and our increasing appetite for new and often- EDWINA FITZPATRICK (JANUARY-JULY 2018) disposable technologies. Edwina Fitzpatrick is a UK-based artist whose work explores the living environment, ABIGAIL LANE & LALA MEREDITH-VULA especially in regard to mutability and change; (JULY-DECEMBER 2019) celebrating narratives and conversations that Abigail Lane’s work addresses the idea of the are deeply informed by the history and the museum; our need to make sense through specific qualities of a place. histories, stories and memories, albeit with the often arbitrary source material from Using interactive fieldwork as her working which things have to be pieced together. methodology, her practice focuses on how Abigail is interested in the way we create humans have and are affecting the nature, order, and also how confusions result in culture and ecology of a place. They also a museum context, the failure to be sure reflect upon how these delicate local balances or complete. She would like to compare the relate to complex global issues such as forest to a museum as an enigmatic place, climate change or marine pollution. hinting at a past world with its own natural laws before we shaped it to fit. JUSTIN CARTER (AUGUST-DECEMBER 2018) Justin Carter’s area of concern is nature Lala Meredith-Vula is an English and as a human construct. His work couples Albanian Kosovian artist and photographer, a hopeless desire to return to nature with whose work focuses on themes of migration, an historical and cultural awareness which diaspora, identity and belonging. Lala has acknowledges this is impossible. previously shown alongside Abigail during the 1988 Damien Hirst-led Freeze exhibition. His practice is an attempt to cause reflection and highlight tensions that exist within the individual and society: “During the week we attempt to optimise industrial productivity. At the weekend we take off in our 4x4s in search of the vanishing wilderness.” Justin works outdoors and uses new technology Clockwise from top left: Edwina Fitzpatrick, The Tree Farm and the to question the more institutionalised sites Wilderness Years, 2014; Abigail Lane, Will nature make a man of me yet, 2003; Justin Carter, Autumn – After William James Muller in Leigh Woods, of display. 2013; Owl Project, Treadle and Saw Set, 2012.

THE OUTDOOR INSTITUTE OF ART is an alternative art school conceived by Yasmin Canvin, with a curriculum that consists of discussions, skills and knowledge sharing events between artists, experts in relevant fields, the arts sector and members of the public. This is delivered over six terms through the following modules: THE FREE EXCHANGE ON TOUR, FINESHADE TALKS, WILD Tim Simmons, Devon Rockpool #1, 2007. LEARNING and WILD SHARING. THE FREE EXCHANGE ON TOUR ART + WELLBEING Damian Hebron and TBC Specialist talks featuring discussions Johnny’s Happy Place between an artist and an expert, exploring 97 Rockingham Road, Kettering NN16 9HX connections between art and the everyday. Tuesday 11 September, 7-8.30pm Held in community spaces and venues across Northamptonshire, principally An artist, plus London Arts in Health Forum within the area, the Director Damian Hebron, discuss the grow- discussions are also live streamed and ing interest in how the arts can improve the available to watch online. wellbeing of individuals and communities, and how and why artists use their own ART, ENGINEERING + THE ENVIRONMENT mental health as a conduit in their practice. Tim Simmons and Simon Dowson Reflecting on the historic relationship Delta Motorsport between arts, health and wellbeing, the Unit 9 Technology Park discussion will question whether the current Silverstone, Silverstone Circuit interest is a fad or is something more deeply NN12 8GX rooted in human nature; exploring the Tuesday 7 August, 7-8.30pm connections between wellbeing and art and how this relationship can be developed both Artist Tim Simmons and Delta Motorsport as an artistic response and as a social healer. Managing Director Simon Dowson discuss how engineering is affecting our environment, the inherit dilemmas in Booking is essential for all events, engineering innovation and the challenges please visit https://bit.ly/2Jk0mkF that creates for our climate. As a high for more information. performance engineering company, and Catch up on our first term’s Free producer of advanced electric vehicles based Exchange: Art + Energy with Ellie at Silverstone Circuit, Delta Motorsport Harrison and Paul Drury on our is concerned with energy efficiency and YouTube Channel. electrification and how that story is told. FINESHADE TALKS WILD LEARNING

Artist talks, held at and led by the current Conceptually led training sessions and Artist in Residence at Fineshade Wood with activities for artists working outdoors, held local, national and international speakers, at Sudborough Green Lodge in Fermyn also live streamed online. Woods and other outdoor spaces in the Rockingham Forest area. EDWINA FITZPATRICK WITH ASHER MINNS The Little Barn MOVING THE MEMBRANE WITH REMI GRAVES Top Lodge, Fineshade Wood Sudborough Green Lodge Near Corby NN17 3BB Fermyn Woods, off Harley Way 10 July, 7-8.30pm Near Brigstock, Kettering Price £5 NN14 3JD 7 July, 10am-5pm Join Artist in Residence Edwina Fitzpatrick Price £30 and Asher Minns, Executive Director Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Join poet and drummer Remi Graves for a for an insight into Edwina’s ARCHIVE OF THE day in the forest exploring concepts of skins, TREES project; discussing public engagement membranes, and surfaces. We’ll be using and understanding of weather and climate rhythm and writing to create and unpick past, present and future. concepts of selfhood, environment and the boundaries between us.

Left: Luke Harby, The Free Exchange, 2018; Below: David Blyth, On the Wing: a flight path for Scolopax Rusticola, 2014; Bottom: Remi Graves, courtesy of Remi Graves, 2018. WILD SHARING

Taking place at Sudborough Green Lodge in Fermyn Woods, our unique rural location and communal approach brings like-minded people together for peer to peer learning, informal skill and knowledge sharing, and provides both a creative and social opportunity.

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO TAXIDERMY WITH DAVID BLYTH Sudborough Green Lodge Fermyn Woods, off Harley Way Near Brigstock, Kettering NN14 3JD 26 August, 10am-5pm Price £30

Join our associate artist David Blyth for a hands-on day of taxidermy, natural materials and woodcraft learning, combining basic preserving techniques and survival skills to make a unique set of handmade artworks. Associate Artists DAVID BLYTH ANNA BROWNSTED VIRGINIE LITZLER JAMES SMITH

Our ASSOCIATE ARTISTS programme provides ongoing support to artists who have previously been commissioned by Fermynwoods. The approach is based on one of the strengths of the commercial arts sector and its long-term relationships with artists, enabling them to develop their practice within a critically supportive environment.

The current iteration is a mentoring programme for interdisciplinary artists wanting to develop their practice in rural spaces, alongside our ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE at Fineshade Wood and supported by Above: Anna Brownsted, Splitter, 2017; Below: James Smith, Fermynwoods staff. from the series Temporal Dislocation, 2013. VIRGINIE LITZLER Virginie Litzler is a French artist and photographer based in Brussels, with an MA in Photography from The Royal College of Art. Her work is concerned with the dialogue between people, urban spaces and motion. She observes and interacts with people in their everyday lives; exploring moments between improvisation and staging, how elements of the body, such as the spine, phalanges and other bones, communicate with gravity. Virginie’s resulting installations Above: Virginie Litzler, Quadrature, 2013; – often existing in a state of equilibrium – Below: David Blyth, Owl Totem, 2013. explore the shift that occurs between seeing a photograph, its constituents and its surroundings. Virginie has recently exhibited DAVID BLYTH at the 57th Venice Art Biennale. David Blyth is considered to be one of the most original, inventive and thought- JAMES SMITH provoking artists working in Scotland James Smith lives and works in both today. In 2003, he represented Scotland in London and Northampton and studied the Venice Biennale and in 2005/06 he was MA Photography at the Royal College of Town Artist in Huntly. David’s practice Art 2010/12. James’s research and practice predominantly concerns itself with an is a debate regarding the architecture of interrogation of Human-Animal relations territory and the projection of politics, within the natural history museum context. through aesthetic and cultural definitions of The research is informed by a sustained geographic positioning within the English engagement with the craft skills of taxidermy landscape. The articulation of territory and draws upon narratives of folklore, through form can be seen as a presentation shamanism and cultural memory to propose of intuitive structures that radiate and alternative methodologies for ‘knowing the demand their coexistence within a landscape. animal’.

ANNA BROWNSTED Anna Brownsted works with sound, text, installation and performance. Her practice plays in the space between fiction and reality, merging the unexpected with the everyday while exploring dynamics of trust, uncertainty and possibility. Her work is often interactive, using a combination of invitation, immersion and disruption to situate participants in temporary or transitory locations – both real and virtual. Originally trained as a theatre director, her process is led by an ongoing interrogation of ‘liveness’. Anna lives and works in Cambridge, UK, and recently exhibited in Actions, the opening exhibition of the new Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. Document ANDREW BRACEY GEOFF DIEGO LITHERLAND JESSICA HARBY KAJAL NISHA PATEL DOCUMENT is a project that seeks to tell the TIM SHORE story of the artist, at this time, in this region, in their voice. Contemporary Visual Arts TRACEY KERSHAW Network have been following six artists from the region over a period of two years, capturing and presenting their experiences of working professionally in the contemporary visual arts, shining a light on their creative processes and giving an insight into how they pursue their practices, and The Little Barn Top Lodge, Fineshade Wood lives, during the course of the project. Near Corby NN17 3BB

DOCUMENT: SIX ARTIST STORIES are a series of Friday, 20 July 2018, 12-2pm short films by filmmaker Bill Newsinger documenting each of the artists. CVAN EM have been sharing them with audiences at Register here: a series of events around the region. https://bit.ly/2JP1tYZ

The event is an opportunity to see the films in Northamptonshire and to talk to the Above: Lamar Francois, Document, 2018; artists involved. Right: Jenny Holt, Archipelago (still), 2016. WORK The full line-up of WORK artists is as follows:

JENNY HOLT Dryden Goodwin (London) QUAD, DERBY Exploring the working lives of home visit healthcare workers.

Jenny Holt (Hebden Bridge) FERMYNWOODS CONTEMPORARY ART, Exploring the impact of distribution warehouse workplaces and employment We are pleased to announce that on rural landscapes and lives. Fermynwoods and Animate Projects have commissioned Jenny Holt to WORK Esther Johnson (Sheffield) in Thrapston, exploring the impact of JUNCTION ARTS, CHESTERFIELD distribution warehouse workplaces and Exploring the impact of different employment on rural landscapes and lives. experiences of work and unemployment on families across generations in post- Led by Animate Projects, alongside industrial Bolsover. partners Fermynwoods Contemporary Art; Junction Arts, Chesterfield; Vivid Projects, Adam Lewis Jacob (Glasgow) Birmingham; and QUAD, Derby; WORK VIVID PROJECTS, BIRMINGHAM is an ambitious and innovative two-year Exploring contemporary workplace activism, practice development programme that will workers’ rights, legislation and campaigning. support animation and moving image artists to develop, produce and exhibit films in collaborative contexts.

WORK will explore ideas and realities of what work means for the way we live today, engaging directly with the experiences of contemporary working lives. STEAM Power THE CE ACADEMY ANDY EATHORNE

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art are taking part in the Greenpower Formula Rockingham Speedway 24 challenge, which involves young people Mitchell Road, Rockingham from The CE Academy working with artists Corby NN17 5AF and engineering professionals to design, 11 July 2018 build and race a sustainable energy-powered car against an international field, held at

Rockingham Speedway, Corby. This project is kindly supported by Green Energy, Northants Community This project will engage the interests Foundation’s Youth Social Action and raise the aspirations of young people Fund, The Race Club Karting UK, and promoting the importance of both Art the Enterprise Education Foundation. and STEM (Science, Technology, English, Mathematics) subjects by blending different disciplines together, linking education and industry. The engineering industry is promoting the need for creativity in the future workforce, however it almost exclusively focuses on STEM subjects. Similarly the arts subjects are excluded from the new English baccalaureate. However, participation in the arts is the primary vehicle for developing creativity, which is an area where we have a long track record of success.

Led by one of our Education Coordinators, Andy Eathorne, students will race their self- built car, filming and live streaming the day’s events from Rockingham Speedway in the Top: Emma Davies, STEAM Power, 2018; Regional Heat on 11 July. Bottom: Andy Eathorne, STEAM Power, 2018. Fermynwoods Fridays 11 MARTIN PROTHERO (2009-10) 12 ALTER (2007) GRAHAM KEDDIE 2018 sees Fermynwoods Contemporary Art celebrate its 20th year. Every Friday 13 CAN YOU SEE SOUND? (2014) throughout the year, Fermynwoods staff 14 FLOATING STRUCTURES (2009) and special guests, from artists and curators to teachers and members of the public, are 15 INTERVENTION making weekly blog posts looking back at (PROJECTED) (2010) some of our favourite activities. 16 THE DROIDS (2016)

PROJECTS COVERED SO FAR INCLUDE: 17 GESTURE (2012-2014) VIRGINIE LITZLER

18 01 LIGHT NIGHT (2008) MAKE BELIEVE (2013) ANGELA KINGSTON ROSALIND STODDART

19 02 INTERCHANGE (2011) TREE (2010)

20 JULIE STEVENTON 03 TRACES (2012) TREE RINGS (2008)

21 04 BEYOND SEVEN MOUNTAINS SPACE PROGRAMME (2016) CLARE ABBATT (2016) SAM FRANCIS READ 22 RODDY BUCHANAN (2017) 05 ART, BRAIN AND BEHAVIOUR 23 AUDIO KINETIC SOLAR (2017) EMMA DAVIES SCULPTURE (2010) 06 OWL PROJECT (2012) 24 ART + DRAMA (2017) 07 I WANT NATURE (2009) SAM FRANCIS READ 08 DRAWING AND DEMOCRACY 25 ALEX CALINESCU (2007) (2017) JESSICA HARBY LOUISE DAVIES

09 BROKEN CITY LAB (2013) 26 TREE LISTENING (2008)

10 HANSEL AND GRETEL AUDIO

WALK (2008) SOPHIE CULLINAN

You can catch up on this rich and popular series at www.fermynwoods.org/tag/fermynwoods-fridays or by following us on social media.

If you have a special Fermynwoods memory from the past 20 years please share it with us via email [email protected] or phone 01832 731257. Front cover: Hayley Skipper, Edwina in Grizedale Forest Skipper, Hayley cover: Front FERMYNWOODS CONTEMPORARY ART Thrapston House, Huntingdon Road Thrapston NN14 4NF

Telephone +44 (0)1832 731257 Email [email protected] Website www.fermynwoods.org Twitter @fermynwoods Instagram fermynwoods Facebook fermynwoodscontemporaryart

Company Registered No. 05434735 Registered Charity No. 1122678 , 2010. , FERMYNWOODS CONTEMPORARY ART ARE: James Steventon Sophie Cullinan Emma Davies Andy Eathorne Jessica Harby

Fermynwoods also gratefully acknowledges the support of St Crispin Lodge, through an annual donation from the Douglas Compton James Charitable Trust; and a donation through The Kenneth Fund.