Evolving the Forest
Wednesday June 19 to Wednesday September 4, 2019 Dartington Space Gallery and the Green Table Café
The essential spirit of the coming-together of voices, thoughts and opinion to the annual gatherings at Dartington convened by art.earth is one of open-ness and fluidity. We believe this open, ecological process engenders unexpected and unusual registers, allowing for a very real and spontaneous mixing of disciplines and outlook. It may not be so unusual for artists and scientists to attempt a sharing of intellectual spaces (although unusual enough), but to broaden this to embrace architects, designers, materials experts, engineers, chemists, philosophers, policy-makers and land managers was the clarion opportunity when convening an event initially stemming from the centenary celebrations of the UK Forestry Commission.
This exhibition grew from the core of Evolving the Forest and was also based on an open call. We simply asked artists to respond to the idea of ‘tree’ or ‘tree-ness’ – nothing more. The work in this exhibition represents the breadth of ideas we received: some of it quite representational, some more abstracted; some designed to hang on a wall as a permanent statement, others to be more ephemeral and to decay within the landscape in which they were created.
[photographs: Oliver Raymond-Barker, Jeremy Ralph]
Much of the work is ‘site-specific’ – that is, it responds to a specific piece of woodland or specific tree. Bob Budd’s work, Marchant Barron’s poems, and Rob and Harriet Fraser’s installation all were made specifically for Dartington and for specific trees within this special landscape.
Artists are:
Marchant Barron, Bob Budd, Douglas Barrett & Katerie Gladdys, Karen Howse, Joanna Brown, Roger Hall, Jo Birch, Deborah Middleton, and from the Arborealists, Stella Carr, Paul Newman, Tim Craven, Kevin Tole, Paul Ridyard and Philippa Beale.
[Please note that Rob & Harriet Fraser’s work will be shown only for one day (June 20), and Bob Budd’s work has been designed to decay quite quickly into its landscape and may well have disappeared long before the formal end of this exhibition in early September.]
View/download the flyer with map. These are also available at the main Visitor Centre and other sites around the Dartington estate.
Read more details about the exhibition
Find more information about the gallery, hours and directions
Meet-the-artists at First Friday, 13.00 to 15.30 July 5
As part of First Friday we will have a conversation with some of the artists in the exhibition, in person or via Skype.
[Main image: Karen Howse, ink drawings (detail)]