Richard Harris
Untitled, 1994
Richard Harris searched hard to find the configuration of coppiced chestnuts that he wanted. He bent and tied their branches, using hedge-laying techniques to create a semicircular archway. The sculpture has slowly matured and Harris returns each winter to trim and tie the annual growth.

Richard Harris
Untitled, 1994
Richard Harris also chose to work with some saucer-shaped holes left by ancient flint mines. He used hundreds of pieces of wood and flint to define these given shapes. Two of the three sculptures he made have recently been dismantled, due to natural disintegration; the third sculpture will also eventually return to the forest floor.

Andy Frost
Play Sculpture and Picnic Furniture, 1995
Working with the foresters, Andy Frost carved and coloured Douglas fir logs into the insects and animals he had observed in the forest. You can picnic on Frost’s grasshopper or beetle, and children can climb on his wasp, pig, caterpillar, snake, or his fox chasing rabbits.

Dominique Bailly
Circle, Line, Cone, 1996
The formal geometric design of Dominique Bailly’s sculpture has gradually become mossy and worn. It is beginning to meld back into the landscape, leaving a kind of archaeological trace.
This work has now been reclaimed by the forest.

(See also Richard Harris, sculpture no.4)

Chris Drury
Coppice Cloud Chamber, 1998
Coppice Cloud Chamber is a camera obscura, a simple optical device that brings the outside in. This igloo-like structure, made from many hundreds of chestnut logs, houses a delicate projected image of the sky and treetops above. The space is contemplative and begs you to sit quietly for a few moments. As you step outside, the surrounding landscape seems more luminous, more clearly defined.

More information is on www.chrisdrury.co.uk

Giuliano Mauri
Imprints, 1999
Giuliano Mauri bent and manipulated chestnut poles harvested in King’s Wood, criss-crossing them around live chestnut trees. The structures enfold the trees, leaving them space to grow and entwine with the woven wood, and to become part of the sculpture.

This work is no longer visible in the forest (2008).

Hamish Fulton
Walking Through, 1999
Hamish Fulton’s book Walking Through resulted from the artist’s walks through King’s Wood and the Stour Valley. It was produced as a signed, limited edition and quickly sold out. The commission celebrated the experience of walking through the forest, looking, listening and thinking - passing through without leaving a trace.

Susan Derges
Kingswood,1999/2000
The photographer Susan Derges was artist in residence in King’s Wood during the four seasons of one year. Using a large pinhole camera deep in the forest, she made images of light filtering through the trees; she also created luminous photograms of fungi and bluebells. An evolving exhibition of these works took place across a full year at St Mary's Church, Ashford in 2000 - 2001, followed by an exhibition at Whitstable Museum and Art Gallery in 2003. The artist's book Kingswood is also available, published by Stour Valley Arts and Photoworks.

Lukasz Skapski
Via Lucem Continens, 2000
Polish artist Lukasz Skapski’s Via Lucem Continens (Avenue Containing Light) is a 140-metre avenue of 200 yew trees planted by local people. The artwork is a device for viewing the setting sun: it framed the sunset on midsummer’s day 2000 and will act as a battery of energy over the next millennium - during which time the yew trees will slowly mature.

Each year on Midsummer Day (subject to weather) a picnic is hosted within the avenue of yew trees. All are invited to join us as we witness the setting of the sun in this unique space. Please see the Diary page foir futher information.

More information on the Via Lucem Continens microsite.
http://lukaskapski.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukasz-skapski/
http://lukasz-skapski.bloog.pl/

Judy Gordon & David Barnett
Figments, 2001
Performing arts specialist Judy Gordon and digital artist David Barnett worked with actors to create extraordinary scenarios using digital collages of the forest and harsh urban environments. They also recorded the voices of a forester and people who live nearby. Their resulting CD is a highly charged and surreal exploration of city-dwellers’ reactions to the forest.

Tessa Farmer
Touch Wood, 2001
Tessa Farmer made over a hundred tiny fairies and goblins out of twigs, leaves, seeds and flowers. These creatures inhabited the forest for several weeks and were seen emerging from their cocoons, flying from branch to branch and scrambling over logs. A very few can be seen to this day. Tessa Farmer’s tiny sculptures were also exhibited at Tweede Natuur, near Antwerp, Belgium.

More information at the New Contemporaries site, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (PDF document); Clapham Art Gallery site; 24 Hour Museum site.

Stephen Turner
Tree Rings, 2001-2002
Stephen Turner created art in which the forest played an active part. Large circular canvases were laid under the canopies of trees and over weeks or months they accumulated marks resulting from processes of growth and decay. Turner also drew with inks he made from leaves, barks, pine cones and berries. An exhibition of these works took place at the Metropole Gallery, Folkstone in 2003 together with an accompanying catalogue.

Based upon this period of practical research futher works were made at Tweede Natuur, Belgium and the Natural History Museum, London.

A new exhibition exploring this ongoing area of Stephen's practice will take place at Fermywoods, Northamptonshire 11th September - 2nd November 2008. For more information see www.fermynwoods.co.uk

Rosie Leventon
Ring, 2003
Rosie Leventon has created an earthwork inspired by the pre-historic barrows, or ancient burial mounds, which are found in King’s Wood and nearby. A circular bank with a concave centre is being held together by cleaved coppiced chestnut straps. By the time this wood has rotted away, the bank will have settled and become established.

More information at www.rosieleventon.com

Rosie Leventon
B52, 2003
Working with Forest Enterprise, Rosie Leventon has cleared sweet chestnut trees to carve out a space in the forest which is twice that of a B52 bomber. The artist wanted to subvert this aircraft’s aggressive power into something positive. Abundant light now falls on the forest floor, bringing new life, regeneration and biodiversity. It can also be seen as future archaeology.

More information at www.rosieleventon.com

Edwina fitzPatrick
Arboreal Laboratory, 2002/04
During her residency in 2002-3, Edwina fitzPatrick used the forest as her arboreal laboratory. She created a range of King’s Wood perfumes with perfumers from Quest International plc, Ashford. The artist also worked with composer Matthew King to create music inspired by birdsong in the forest. The exhibition was at the Herbert Read Gallery, Kent Institute of Art and Design, Canterbury in October 2004 and the book, Arboreal Laboratory published by SVA, was launched to coincide with the exhibition.

More information is on www.edwinafitzpatrick.co.uk

Emily Richardson
Aspect 2003/04
Aspect is a response to the night and early morning light in King’s Wood through the seasons. A year of the forest condensed into nine minutes. This 16mm film uses time-lapse photography and has a sound track by Benedict Drew, which acts as a parallel pulse to the film. Aspect was screened in the forest in September 2004 and it has subsequently been shown in other venues, such as the Whitchapel Art Gallery, and festivals all over the world. The book Time Frames, published by SVA, places Aspect in the context of Emily Richardson’stwo other time-lapse films and includes a CD of the soundtracks of all three films by Benedict Drew.

More information on www.emilyrichardson.org.uk

Peter Fillingham
The Last Eleven Years 2004/5
Peter Fillingham has designed a railing to lead you through the forest, but it doesn’t lead anywhere in particular and is at times quite hard to follow. As a fence it keeps nothing in or out but disappears into the trees its end unseen. Made by a local fencer in softwood it sits lightly in its forest surroundings drawing a line through the forest and raising the question, Is it an artwork or is it a Forestry construction? A piece for your imagination to play with.

Jacques Nimki
2005/06
Jacques Nimki worked in King’s Wood researching plant life on the floor of the forest. The results of this research informed an installation for Fabric in Brighton, in the summer of 2006, with whom we collaborated on this project.

Jem Finer
Score for a Hole in the Ground
Jem Finer the first recipient of the prestigious PRS New Music Award has realised his proposal Score for a Hole in the Ground at King's Wood. It is a post-digital work that relies purely on gravity and water to generate music.

Inspired by suikinkutsu, water chimes found in temple gardens of Japan, Score for a Hole in the Ground uses tuned percussive instruments, played by falling water, to create music. Finer describes his piece as "both music and an integrated part of the landscape and the forces that operate on it and in it".

Please be aware that the sound element of this piece is extremely subtle. It requires time to allow you to tune your ear to the level of sound and is affected by weather and ambient noise.

A book documenting the background, installation and first year of Score for a Hole in the Ground is now available. Click to order a copy from Cornerhouse.

More information and audio recordings of Score for a Hole in the Ground and Longplayer can be found at www.scoreforaholeintheground.org and www.longplayer.org

To find this piece and its location in the forest please see the map:

Map of SVA in King's Wood - PDF version (302k)
Map of SVA in King's Wood - JPG version (287k)

Matthew King
King's Wood Symphony 2007
King's Wood Symphony was written by Matthew King with contributions from Nye Parry, Mike Roberts and students from Guildhall School of Music & Drama plus students from local schools.

The wood was used as inspiration, performance space and instrument in this piece which animated a dialogue between the ancient woodland space and the contempoary urban environment. The work included horns, percussion and digitally manipulated sounds of the forest and was presented first as a grand symphony, with musicians playing and moving through a mile and a half of the forest, and secondly as two pieces of chamber music at Wigmore Hall, London.

A new documentary film of this event will be posted here soon.

Tim Norris
Hill Seat, 1994/5 (pictured)
Coppice Seat, 1994/5
Tim Norris has made two seats, one dug into the chalk, the other nestled within a coppiced chestnut. Unusual and unexpected, they nevertheless integrate with the existing landscape and provide welcome rest on the long North Downs Way.

Emily Allchurch
Walkway, 1994
Emily Allchurch used timbers to raise and shape pathways around a natural soak. The wood has rotted over time and the paths are now returning to their former, purely functional state.