‘Encounters, journeys through language and landscape’

An off-beat art event, entitled ‘Encounters, journeys through language and landscape’, explores the contours of our personal relationship with the nature and environment through a series of temporary installations and artist interventions, performances and artist-led walks, from Fermyn Woods Country Park to Lyveden New Bield. Specially commissioned and existing work uses visual, written and spoken language to make physical and conceptual links between the rural landscape and the places we create for ourselves.

The works investigate how open spaces can become places full of meaning and how we develop a sense of belonging in unfamiliar places. Artists and poets are to lead walks between the two sites, exploring their local history, and culture through music, visual images, conversation and verse. Works by artists like Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Paula Boulton, Rebecca Lee, Graeme Miller, Shane Waltener, Caroline Wright, and Jitish Kallat are part of the engrossing artistic exercise.

Jitish Kallat reflects on the human struggle through his monumental work When will you be happy. Kallat states, “Even as the bone-text is evocative of death like a memento mori, it is actually a life-affirming call reminding one of the futility of living a life based on desire and disappointments."

Caroline Wright’s work Untitled (believe) responds to the Buddhist principles of the Japanese tea ceremony, which are written in large neon letters; Tranquillity, Respect, Harmony and Purity. Wright has also created an audio guide of her journey through a real and make-believe forest, which can be downloaded.

Rebecca Lee used her time as Fermynwoods artist in residence to develop a new sound installation, exploring what the woods mean to other people through music. She states, “Great Chorus explores the way in which music can fill in the gaps when words don't work. A clearing will be filled with music that bridges those gaps for people when they're walking in the woods.”

Shane Waltener’s installation works are informed by the idea of 'desire lines'. The journey has been marked by a series of lace fabric, planes‟ that define openings, entrances, exits and arches. Waltener uses the trees, fences and other natural and manmade features as looms to weave on.

(Information courtesy: Fermynwoods Contemporary Art)