Critical Writing

Sorry for not being in touch

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Old Letterbox at Erddig Estate, nr. Wrexham, Wales, n.d.

Dear Readers, I hope you are well.

Apologies for the lack of manual dexterity on my blog of late I have been extremely unwell, so unwell in fact I couldn’t type or at least I was trying but inventing a completely new and unintelligible language. For some self encouragement this blog is about what I will be blogging about. Things have occurred that can be written about, in spite of some of these things happening many months ago, so I decided I will write about them anyway if memory provides the ability to do so. These include a ‘medieval propaganda’ day relating to St.George at St. John the Baptist Church, Fleet Street, Coventry, a Hidden Heritage Conference in Dorset (an oxymoron I know), a visit to Burton Dassett Hills, Warwickshire, an outstanding Arts & Crafts House, Blackwell, south of Bowness, Windermere and Brantwood, Coniston Water, home of John Ruskin in the latter years of his life.

Yours

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Wish you Were Here: Micro Residency, Artist Researcher (Interpretation) Erddig House & Gardens

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The Bridge in the Park, Erddig House & Gardens, Nr. Wrexham, Wales

The Bridge in the Park, Erddig House & Gardens, Nr. Wrexham, Wales

Micro Residency, Artist Researcher, National Trust, Archaeology Team, Erddig House & Gardens, Nr Wrexham, Wales 15th – 31st October.

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson’s Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Erddig like this:

“ERTHIG, or Erddig, a township in Gresford parish, Denbigh; on Offa’s Dyke, 2 miles SW of Wrexham. Pop., 117. Houses, 31. Erthig Hall is the seat of the Yorkes, -of whom was Philip -Yorke, author of “The Royal Tribes of Wales;” has, on the walls and ceilings of one of its rooms, the heraldic bearings of the tribes; and occupies a charming situation.” [1]

I have recently spent the week at the Yale Hostel about a mile from Erddig (pronounced Erthig) House & Gardens as Artist Researcher (Interpretation) assisting the monitoring of the Archaeological Monuments in the grounds of Erddig which has a formal walled garden and covers 485 hectares equalling 1,200 acres. The collection at Erddig is the 2nd largest in the UK, bequeathed to the Trust under the provision that no item be discarded. Supporting the Field Archaeology Team my remit is to contribute artistically to the undertaking of the Archaeological and Historic Landscape Survey at Erddig. My contribution includes A] Deep Mapping: Stories in the Landscape, B] The Map & The Territory: Utilising items in the collection to interpret the Landscape C] Documenting the Process: in a format that can be understood by the public D] Visualising and Representing the Data: making recommendations regarding the concrete representation of the Historic Buildings, Sites and Monuments Record which is essentially a digital database of the archaeological monuments in the historic parkland.

As a visual artist my artistic practice is site specific whether this site be actual, physical, textual, fictional or virtual. Both contextually and historically sensitive the role of place and place making is central to my work. Within this there is a tacit acknowledgement that the concept of place is constructed from a complex network of relations i.e symbolic, social, political, familial, local, national and historical. Place is central to the sensitive concept of belonging and home which contribute to a person’s autobiographical identity. This profoundly affects how that identity is situated and has significant impact on emotional wellbeing. Within my work I take a methodical, detailed, and extensively researched approach to the curation of material in order to construct comprehensive documents of place in the form of installed environments. In many respects I am a custodian or caretaker who respectfully recuperates, conserves and restores micro histories, narratives, objects and images that have been orphaned, discarded or forgotten. Legacy, whilst it may not always be visible, is a constant presence whether this relates to National Trust custodianship, archaeological practice, the historic parkland at Erddig, personal history or artistic practice. The rich tapestry that is art history, an artists’ conceptual trajectory, their historical timeline, the time of their work, the time of its making, the context in which one is making and their contemporaries all add up to what the literary critic Harold Bloom called, in the book of the same name, the anxiety of influence. Art does not occur in isolation, it is always made in ‘situ’. As a printmaker there is no such thing as a blank piece of paper, one always approaches it knowing that contextually, historically, artistically and technologically that it is already replete; it is a dialogue not a monologue.

Similarly the National Trust’s investment in significant cultural, historical and natural places, the people who populate them and the communities that surround them ensure our heritage is preserved as well as shared by enabling people to contribute and collaborate in its preservation. Personally speaking the research aims to investigate the intersection between art and archaeology, whereby art can also be a form of historiography that re-contextualises our relations to the past as a form of memorial or restoration. For that reason I will also be mining the art historical legacy relating to the site specific and the correlation between an aspect of historical archaeological practice and conceptual art, the concept of the grid. This concrete and in depth engagement with Erddig, generously facilitated by Kathy Laws: Archaeologist at the National Trust, will develop a more comprehensive understanding of what it means to be site specific, not just artistically & imaginatively, but historically, physically, technologically and contextually. This can only improve the depth of my work as an artist engaged with concepts of place, contexts, histories and heritage both private and public.

[1] http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/3124

Review: CHORALE, A Sam Shepard Roadshow, The War in Heaven

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The War in Heaven (Photograph: Nina Sologubenko) CHORALE: A Sam Shepard Roadshow, The Presence Theatre Company

The War in Heaven, Sam Shepard

“I died the day I was born and became an Angel on that day”

Whilst the non resolution of The Holy Ghostly was resolved powerfully both in terms of the scenography, the visual imagery and the performance by John Chancer this did not translate successfully in The War in Heaven which Usher describes as “a moving plea from both a fallen angel and a man struggling to be heard once more.” I would argue important contextual information was missing for the audience in the interpretation of this play especially following the The Holy Ghostly since the full title is The War in Heaven: Angel’s Monologue. Whilst The Animal You and The Holy Ghostly were connected conceptually and through the characters there was absolutely no connection to the final instalment except the fact that it was Sam Shepard’s work.

As a general rule visually I  found the scene to be completely incoherent, which in itself is not a dismissal of the aesthetic, sculptural and conceptual qualities of this kind of work and its inherent complexities however it felt largely unresolved from a formal perspective. There was simply no connection between the performers in space and the set. Clearly narrative and visual incoherence are  conceptual strategies and the production appeared to commit to this concept as an overall architecture to the work. The play itself is on many levels trying to find form through language within a stream of consciousness speech but my feeling is it didn’t go far enough and was therefore caught somewhere between the concept and the execution. If this disconnection is a formal aspect of the work it is possible to resolve the visually incoherent formally but there seemed to be a failure to commit to the intention and make it concrete.

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Review: CHORALE, A Sam Shepard Roadshow, The Holy Ghostly

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The Holy Ghostly, (Photograph: Arnim Friess), CHORALE: The Sam Shepard Roadshow, The Presence Theatre Company

The Holy Ghostly, (Photograph: Arnim Friess), CHORALE: The Sam Shepard Roadshow, The Presence Theatre Company

“Sam Shepard begins and ends with the road where the route to promise and fulfilment, or damnation seem perilously interwoven…imagine luring Beckett onto the back of  a flatbed truck with Jack Kerouac, Corso and the Beats driving across America, hard, fast and furiously in search of a new sublime.”

Contrary to my usual approach I did not do any research prior to attending the performance in order to receive it as it was given. One of the main issues that has appeared for me as a visual artist in relation to this production and my own work is the intention or challenge “To explain or not to explain the work”. That is the question critical to the reception of any visual art form and this work is packed with its own explanation, visual, textual, critical and contextual. This review is my attempt to unpack the work which is fittingly existentially burdened with its own history of making. I have not reviewed the first part of CHORALE The Animal You; contrary to Beckett I couldn’t go on.

CHORALE: The Sam Shepard Roadshow is highly challenging both in terms of its visual proposition, existential subject matter and its embeddedness within the mythology of the American landscape. There is a tremendous degree of  conceptual and contextual complexity embedded in the work, not least the intricate interrelationships of the part to the whole which includes the work of the playwright Sam Shepard (The Holy Ghostly and The War in Heaven), Shepard’s relation to actor, director and writer Joseph Chaikin and in turn the director of The Presence Theatre Company, Simon Usher who first directed Chaikin in 1987 in the The War in Heaven (co-written by Shepard and Chaikin). Although the relations between these parts are writ large in the supporting material they were not contextually clear leading to a lack of clarity, certainly where the audience is concerned, in terms of the overall visual proposition (i.e 3 plays, 2 films, 1 gig). The substantial amount of depth, labour, pathos and knowledge involved in this work is, to the uninitiated, largely inaccessible. There is an effort to address this within the production itself with the inclusion of rarely seen films by Shirley Clarke of Joseph Chaikin performing Shepard’s work in Savage/Love (1979) and Tongues (1969). These were aesthetically, conceptually engaging and successful pieces of work, yet in this presentation format they were reduced to explanation, contextual props and footnotes to the production. These films were critical to an overall understanding of the work however if you had not attended the workshop during the production you would not have seen Chaikin in Tongues which I certainly felt further contextualised The War in Heaven.

Whilst it had perhaps not been the intention it was natural enough as an audience member to read the production as a trilogy and although the relations were expanded and connected in terms of the characters, mood, narrative and the overall existential highway presented in the first two instalments The Animal You (developed from the work of Sam Shepard) and The Holy Ghostly, the last instalment The War in Heaven entered an entirely different psychological and theatrical realm and I really could not understand the decision to perform the latter two plays back to back. Since the performance of The Holy Ghostly was 90 minutes this was a substantial amount of time to inhabit a particular form and location which changed direction radically in the 2nd performance (an excruciating 35 minutes) severing the connection with the audience.

The Holy Ghostly, Sam Shepard (1969)

“What if I was to tell you there was a Chindi out there with more faces and more arms and legs than the two of us put together? You really think we’re alone, don’t ya boy?” *
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Intermission

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Ragley Hall Gallery and Studios

Dear Readers

Please accept my apologies for the lack of manual dexterity on my blog of late. I can assure you that even if it appears my fingers have been idle my feet have not and although I have been otherwise indisposed there are changes afoot!. Normal service will be resumed shortly but in the meantime I am pleased to announce that I now have a Studio Space at Ragley Hall in the heart of the Warwickshire countryside. Ragley Hall is a working Estate, Stately Home, Gardens, Butchery and Saw Mill open to the public at the weekends. I will be taking part in the Warwickshire Open Studios Event June 28th 2014.

“Harris Visual Arts was established by Dawn Harris and is based in Ragley Gallery and Studios at Ragley Hall. Operating as a community for artists to develop their practices their aim is to provide affordable artist and gallery spaces to graduates, early career and established artists from the surrounding communities. Currently there are few viable options available to graduating students and artists wishing to develop their practice within this area. Often ignored in terms of producing artistic talent, the West Midlands represents a particular challenge both in terms of the commercial arts scene and artists who wish to sustain their practices in this region after graduating. Harris Visual Arts at Ragley Hall is pushing forward to develop an arts market and keep artists in the region. The unique position of the Gallery and Studio, in a site with an audience interested in heritage and culture, will benefit emerging artists by highlighting quality emerging talent and offering a crucial bridge between training and a professional career. This is a positive step; as London continues to draw in talent from across the UK (and the world) developing off–centre scenes offers an alternative view and a chance for artists to shape their own community.

Many arts organisations work in partnership with a variety of host venues, whether locally loved destinations, tourism, heritage sites or historic gardens with an established visitor base. This encourages audience participation,  creates new audiences and cross-fertilisation between the contemporary arts and heritage sectors. All of which we aim to achieve but critically different is the provision of a permanent gallery and studio’s within an established site where a sense of place and reputation can contribute to the growth and development of the Arts. This will also provide opportunities for education and outreach programmes at the heart of our activity encouraging participation, discussion and reflection about contemporary art.”

Quoted text paraphrased/Images reproduced from http://dawnlharris.wordpress.com/about-gallery-and-studios/