Dialogue

A conversation between Sandra Drew, Director, SVA and Jeremy Theophilus, Chairperson, SVA.

JT: How did Stour Valley Arts come into being?

SD: Stour Valley Arts Project, as it was first called, began as a local initiative in 1993 when Martin Hall, the Countryside Development Officer for the Kentish Stour Countryside Project suggested to the Forestry Commission that they develop pathways and signage in King’s Wood to make the forest more accessible to visitors. The Forestry Commission needed to develop its recreational possibilities to justify the maintenance of these huge forests, forestry no longer being a profitable industry. It was felt that having some art works in the forest would encourage more people to come and visit. A steering committee was set up which included representatives from local authorities, South East Arts, the Forestry Commission and the Kentish Stour Countryside Project. I was selected to design the initial programme of sculpture commissions for King’s Wood and subsequently invited to co-ordinate the project. Martin Hall saw the potential of such a sustainable artistic development in this great forest and his enthusiasm and energy helped move the project forward in the first few years.

JT: What were your ambitions for the project at the outset, the curatorial ideas that informed you?

SD: I wanted it to be a really ambitious and long term project. I saw it as an opportunity to do something that would be significant. It was a unique platform to work from. The notion of commissioning site-specifically, of supporting artists’ work in progress and of giving artists a long time to develop a proposal was what interested me from the beginning. I wanted to support artists to really engage with the place, to not have to hurry the artistic and curatorial process.

Also integral from the beginning was that the art works that emerged would be made accessible through a broad-based education programme for a range of ages and abilities, that would run in parallel to the commissions. I didn’t want the commissioned artists to necessarily carry out the education work, we weren’t looking to commission artists whose expertise was educational. But rather to work with artist educators to deliver the education element of the commissions. I wanted to keep artists’ specialisations not completely separate but parallel, so that each artist would be recognised for their particular abilities and expertise.

And I was also clear from the outset of what I didn’t want Stour Valley Arts to be. I didn’t want it to be a sculpture trail.

JT: Your ideas have developed in the way that you work with artists, can you trace the evolution of the curatorial and commissioning process over the years?

SD: This particular way of working evolved with Drew Gallery Projects in Canterbury during the Eighties. I discovered that what interested me most was supporting artists through the process of making new work for non-gallery spaces - developing a project around the space/site. Key to this is the commissioning relationship: where the artist gives you the outline of an idea and you work together to develop it - nurturing the creative process. This was similar to the way Artangel now works.

But of course in King’s Wood there is a given context. The forest is huge, and it offered even more possibilities than I realised to begin with. I was very aware of the scale of this large working forest and its ruggedness – it’s not a garden or a park. I wanted the work we commissioned to echo that scale, to be very much part of the landscape, using forest materials, forest processes – growth and decay, soliciting responses to the geology, history and the archaeology of the site. Not on the spectacular scale of some of the American Land Art but rather on a more gentle and intimate scale as this Kentish landscape prescribes.

With the first residency Richard Harris proposed to work over six months which was possible because we can make our own deadlines and we don’t have too many outside constraints. The artist’s research time and the requirements of the work itself could dictate the time frame, allowing those needs to be met, to be a priority. I think this has become a way of working particular to SVA.
Given our proximity to Europe it was important to work with European artists. The artists that I first started working with were Richard Harris, Dominique Bailly, Hamish Fulton and Chris Drury who were all working internationally and so it opened up networks for us that we have continued to develop.

JT: Is there any way to define your curatorial approaches? It seems to be about relationships, particularly long term relationships.

SD: Yes… long term relationships, with the place and with the artists. Facilitating these relationships over a period of time and giving them space to develop. With Edwina fitzPatrick we imagined a year long commission and in fact the commission lasted two years. Her work depended on her getting the time to experience the seasonal changes. We were able to give that time, not to rush it and not to be too rigid with a deadline. To allow for experimentation, for mistakes, for discovery. Also, realising that I could commission work that was a response to the forest, made in the forest but shown elsewhere was significant and liberating.

Artists responding to and making connections with each others’ work have evolved as SVA’s commissioning has developed. Susan Derges looking at Chris Drury’s camera obscura became aware of the apertures that existed in the forest itself. Talking to Susan a year or so later I mentioned I wanted to work with an artist who was interested in smell. I’d already made a connection with Quest International, a company based in Ashford who manufacture perfume. Susan suggested I speak to Edwina fitzPatrick, as she’d been making a series of work on smells in Exeter. Edwina had never worked in a forest, so it was a real exploration for her. She was very enthusiastic about working collaboratively with Quest International. Her original idea of an arboreal laboratory, as a real sculptural platform, faded and she is now pleased that this idea remained a drawing and an idea in her head. But the site of the proposed arboreal laboratory remained an important reference point for Edwina throughout her research. Her experiments into smell, time, space and sound, on which she collaborated with composer Matthew King, have created a new layer of exploration of King’s Wood that is very rich.

JT: What are the challenges of this way of working?

SD: Well, we have to take on new commissions, while others are still being developed and completed, ideas are still being changed, there are publications and touring work to be taken care of. We have to be very flexible and very accommodating. The workload of carrying a number of different projects has increased hugely because of these overlaps, but the support has increased too; from one very part-time post we now have three posts as well as a roster of freelance consultants. What we have established is a hub of creativity, with artists coming and going, meeting up, talking, sharing ideas and forest experiences.

JT: Is it an issue maintaining the balance between naturally decommissioning pieces and new work – basically, ensuring that there is enough there for people to see all the time?

SD: Yes it is and the recent re-energising of the site with Rosie Leventon’s two earthworks, B52 and Ring, has been fantastic. It has created a renewed interest in our work with people wanting to come back and see what else is in the forest. We carefully maintain the sculptures in King’s Wood, ensuring they are safe. But all the work is affected by time and weather, some growing to fruition, other pieces decaying gradually and finally returning to the earth. Visitors can follow and enjoy these changes. We do have occasional vandalism too, sometimes intentional other times just thoughtless. It goes with the territory. But I increasingly want people who come to the forest to be aware of all the other SVA activities that go on, new commissions, our extensive education programme; to connect the rolling programme of SVA activity both in the forest and out in the wider world.

JT: And that connecting is certainly working...

SD: Yes, it seems to be. But there is always more to be done. We would like more sustained communication with visitors to the forest.

JT: The relationship between the commissioning and its dissemination, whether its through direct engagement, or second hand, through exhibitions or publications is very important.

SD: Yes, somebody seeing Stephen Turner’s work in the Metropole Gallery in Folkestone who is able to connect it back to King’s Wood maintains SVA’s presence with a disparate audience, keeps the circle going back to where the work originates from. It takes an urban audience back to the forest, back to the rural.

JT: If you give artists a completely open hand then they can come up with anything and this seems very risky; such as the work of Edwina fitzPatrick where the evidence of the commission is not in the forest but exists elsewhere. Some people would find that a little difficult.

SD: Hamish Fulton didn’t have a presence in the forest either and that was early on, that was the first commission we did that left no trace. It was also the first artist’s book. The whole commission was very clear cut because of who he was and how he works. He walked the same route each day for seven days. The commission was the book which recorded each walk and each day he saw, smelt and heard different things. Living locally Hamish was pleased to work with SVA, it’s his territory, he was delighted to do a walk that started and ended at his front door. The success of this book opened up the publishing field for us which was very exciting.

JT: Publications have really become very important, haven’t they?

SD: Yes, the publications are important and have become an integral part of the commissions. They disseminate the work to a wider audience and they act as a public face for the organisation. So, from our unique, somewhat isolated rural location we can simultaneously have a presence in New York, Tokyo and Challock. The books also allow us to place the newly commissioned work in the context of the artists’ previous work and the art world in general – such as Lukasz Skaspski’s Light Works and Emily Richardson’s Time Frames. In 1997 we also produced a publication for teachers and it has proved to be a valuable and popular resource and an excellent P.R. tool for us.

JT: One of the interesting things to look at is how the work produced by Stour Valley Arts relates the rest of the art world. What King’s Wood holds as its cultural asset reflects what’s been happening within the UK over the last 10 years. It isn’t work we typically associate with fashionable young British artists. Do you have a sense of where the work you commission sits?

SD: SVA’s commissions sit very much in a contemporary art context. We do work with young British artists – Emily Richardson, Tessa Farmer, Peter Fillingham, Jacques Nimki to name but a few. We are working with current ideas and concerns but slowly, quietly. Peter Fillingham is currently making a piece which is a 220 metre railing to guide walkers through the forest, an idea that this most urban of artists developed out of confronting his anxiety and disorientation whilst attempting to work in our vast forest. It has been particularly interesting to work with Fillingham; his very personal (although quite universal) response to the forest has opened up discussions about the psychological agenda each person brings with them when they visit the forest. This has fed into research we are presently undertaking for an SVA publication about the place of the forest in the contemporary imagination. Fillingham’s railing will also be the focus for a collaborative performance piece and a small publication which will contextualise and document this temporary work.

The Polish artist Lukasz Skapski’s commission in 2000 is an avenue of yew trees aligned to the sunset on Midsummer’s day 2000. It is a work which will come to fruition in 100 years or so and last for 1000: an idea which requires a stretch of the imagination – a conceptual work. But one which was also grounded in its locality – local people came and planted the trees. This commission resulted in an interactive ecologically sound piece of work in the forest, as well as a catalogue that provided an overview of the artist’s work and a quirky, humorous exhibition of pseudo scientific sculptures that toured to Shoreditch, Newcastle and Lille.

JT: Emily Richardson’s project takes SVA into a completely different field.

SD: Absolutely...into film and the fact that its 16mm and she is using timelapse is a link back to the original Land Art artists in the Sixties who used film. It is a film which captures a year of the forest in nine minutes. It was funded by SVA and also attracted funding from Film London. Richardson is an artist who also operates in the film world - Aspect was shown at the London Film Festival and New York Film Festival. The whole production of this film too was a much more ‘film’ based activity in that Richardson had a team to work with, used professional equipment and worked as the director on site. She also collaborated with the sound artist Benedict Drew who composed the soundtrack using sounds recorded in King’s Wood. Emily uses stills to build a story-board from which she films. Using these images in an accompanying publication with a CD of the soundtracks made an interesting but unusual accompaniment for a film and extended SVA’s role as a publisher of artists’ books. It also enabled us to place Aspect in the context of her other two films and their soundtracks. Such an ephemeral piece of work - first shown in the forest in September and now this spool of film is travelling around the world to film festivals, ...it is a very attractive idea to me and also re-enforces our international reputation.

JT: Given the international mix of artists that you have worked with have you noticed if there is a particular British aesthetic or one that is common to Europe?

SD: I think there’s a certain relationship that the English have to landscape that is different to the Europeans. In England there is an obsession with the landscape from Gainsborough to Samuel Palmer, then Sutherland and Henry Moore to Fulton and Long and Matt Collinshaw - it seems an ever present preoccupation. The history of contemporary art in northern European countries is very conceptual, very urban. Consequently the work has been very gallery based. The artists working with nature there tend to formalise and take control of the natural elements, manipulating nature, working in a much more conceptual way – like Sjoerd Buisman. This work is more acceptable to galleries. In England Long and Fulton made their work outside in the landscape and, rather reluctantly one feels, brought fragments and momentos of it back into the gallery. This is also true of the more lyrical Goldsworthy. Artists everywhere need galleries and need to sell their work but there are artists who elect to work outside the gallery – with organisations like us.

JT: What about the public’s perception of SVA? Locally, nationally and internationally?

SD: From the beginning, because of our East Kent location we looked to northern France and Belgium and made links with organisations and artists, from which we have developed a growing European audience. It’s actually possible, with Eurotunnel, for people to make a day trip to King’s Wood. The relationships we have developed with Tweede Natuur in Belgium and the Forest Forum in England have also made it possible to extend our networks. Our publications nurture a more wide spread audience. And there are events in the forest like ‘Draw A Mile of the Forest’, last year, when more than two hundred people drew on paper made from the coppiced chestnut wood in chalk and charcoal across a mile of the forest floor. Also, Richardson’s film screening and the annual Midsummer Picnic bring together existing and new audiences. When we did a visitors’ survey in 2003, we found that most people hadn’t come specifically to see the sculptures; some people do, but a huge percentage had come to walk the dog, or to exercise and had noticed the sculptures and enjoyed them. Statistically these are people who don’t normally go to art galleries. This is one of the real strengths of SVA, to communicate with people that wouldn’t usually visit a gallery and to surprise them – 92% of visitors that never visit a gallery said they really enjoyed the sculpture.

JT: Do you want to say something about the development of the education programme, which has always been an integral part of SVA activity and which also links in with audience development...

SD: We have always considered that our education programme is an essential part of our long term audience development strategy. The education programme is still evolving, but it has always been fundamental to what SVA does. Our initial model of a two day workshop that SVA began 1994 has proved very successful and is still being used. The children do a walk, then spend time making drawings, sculptures and installations. They also engage in discussions about their activities. We’ve learnt that this is extremely valuable for participants. The evaluation paperwork for these projects has become a comprehensive resource for us. Although we mainly work with schools we have responded to requests to work with different groups, young carers and young refugees from the East Kent area, for example. Nicholette Goff, our former education consultant, and I realised that because of the particular needs of these groups artists would require specific training. We subsequently devised a training programme to equip artists with knowledge, strategies and techniques to enable them to work effectively with these groups. This became our acclaimed For You Too programme.

Running parallel with the first year of For You Too we also started a programme called ART<>ECO. This is a long term project devised and delivered by an artist and an ecologist and offered to schools and other groups. The project aims to develop activities that relate to different aspects of the school curriculum and also builds team-work and social interaction skills amongst the pupils.
For You Too and ART<>ECO are exciting models which share essential similarities. Both models can be used with many different types of participants. What we want to do is develop excellent education programmes which are participant centred and give quality of experience and to train artists to deliver these programmes.

Recently I was talking to a teacher who is part of the For You Too programme. She is teaching science around chlorophyll and was so excited to have the opportunity to see Edwina fitzPatrick’s texts about her chlorophyll experiments: a good example of the commissioned work feeding back into education.

JT: What about working with the Higher Education sector?

SD: SVA has a history of working with students from the Kent Institute of Art & Design. From the outset we have offered students bursaries to make work in the forest, and at other sites in Kent and Europe. Students also assist the commissioned artists, and we have office-bound student placements as well. Some of the students we worked with on the bursaries have subsequently come to work with us as professional artists like Tim Norris, Nikki Dennington and Bill Hudson. Mentoring is also an important aspect of this process and we have a graduate programme with KIAD and Creative Partnerships Kent. SVA regularly participates in talks programmes at KIAD, University of East Anglia, Chelsea College of Art and also at the University of Greenwich in Medway. At the moment, we are working with Jennet Thomas of the Wimbledon School of Art on an animation commission and through this connection we are now developing a project for Wimbledon students. There are also links with the University of Kent, Canterbury Christchurch College and South Kent College.

JT: At the beginning, did you have a sense of the progression of SVA, and what it could become as an organisation in 10 or 20 years time?

SD: Yes, I always hoped that SVA would become a centre of creativity. Artists -professional, students and the very young - coming and going, working alongside each other, a place where they could develop their practice - that vision was there from the beginning. Until the recent development of the Turner Contemporary Kent had no major focus for the visual arts; I wanted to develop that here in King’s Wood without a building, working with the rural environment, structures, people; inviting artists from all over the world and disseminating aspects of the work resulting from the residencies to an international audience; and having an innovative education programme responding to and interacting with these residencies. The development of commissions in other media, the touring exhibitions and the publications, which I think have given an added shape to SVA, weren’t defined in the beginning but have developed over time.

JT: And what would you say have been the highlights, the successes over the last ten years?

SD: Having people connect with this place - five hundred people in Lukasz Skapski’s avenue of yew trees to watch the sun go down on Midsummer’s Day in 2000 and that people come back each year to see the sunset. Screening Aspect, Emily Richardson’s film, in the forest with an audience of two hundred people more than half of whom came down from London. All walking through the forest with their picnics and as night fell watching the film on a screen suspended between two trees, the forest projected on to the forest and then an owl interacting with the soundtrack – magical moments!

The success of the workshops particularly the For You Too programme - children and young people being transformed by their forest experience, their imaginations firing in all directions. The naughtiest boy of the class becoming the star of the workshop.

Working with artists of great integrity such as Susan Derges who produced exquisite prints of the floor and the ceiling of the forest during her year long residency in King’s Wood. These photographs then making a memorable exhibition in Ashford parish church and, I think, possibly our most beautiful publication to date, Kingswood.

JT: So what are your ambitions for the future? There is talk of a building...

SD: I’m hugely excited about the possibility of a specifically designed building in the forest for SVA and we are planning a feasibility study for this. To give us that sustained communication with visitors and to support the work that we do as an organisation I think we do now need a building that is small, beautiful, and well designed. It will accommodate a gallery, an education workshop and a studio for an artist to live and work in, as well as office space with staff and visitor facilities. We would like a building that fits into the forest like a sculpture, that becomes part of the forest. It is deeply satisfying that the Forestry Commission have initially been very supportive of this idea. This allows us to consider this proposal as a shared long term vision. It’s great to be able to collaborate and to know that we can build on the relationship that has grown over the years. A building in King’s Wood will give us a significant and enduring presence in the forest and a focus for the future.

JT: Well, that’s been an amazing ten years!

SD: Yes it has, thanks to all the people who have shared the vision, who have contributed to making SVA what it is today – the trustees, the staff, the artists, our partners, participants, audience and of course our funders – none of this would have been possible without them. I hope they have all enjoyed it as much as I have!