ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [25 September 2008]

We have had some great applications. Going through them has been a lot of work but worth it, there are some real gems. So far we have invited Rona Smith, a sculptor and installation artist and Peter Watkins, a photographer. Discussing their ideas is very exciting. We are also talking to a few other artists, watch this space ...

# 2 [28 September 2008]

We have also been contacted by a documentary film maker, Tamara Erde, who is interested in filming a sculptor, which is an exciting idea. Her showreel is great. She is going to come and work with one of the artists which adds a new dimension to the project. More details to come ...

# 3 [29 September 2008]

Our third artist is Stefan Rohner, a Swiss sculptor and installation artist. He will probably be bringing a friend, Bruno Steiger, who is also a sculptor. Stefan's idea is to work with shadows, recreating the shadow on the ground from stones. 

Each artist has given us an idea of what they would like to create, but it is difficult for them to formulate these without viewing the site. So it will be exciting to see how their ideas change and develop in response to the land. 

Our first artist, Peter Watkins, will be coming on the 10th October. He is a photographer working with light and darkness (lighting projected onto trees, grass ...). The idea is to create photographs of an element of the landscape and then exhibit these images in the landscape. 

# 4 [14 October 2008]

By Peter Watkins - Artist-in-Residence 

When driving the 660 miles, the twelve-and-a-half hours, and what seems like, and almost is, the entire length of France, its incredible how you see. (Tyres ceaselessly rolling over toll-standard tarmac, service stations, watchful mullets, exchange students, dependable good tasting coffee, more tarmac, travel-tired eyes, broken English, a conversation about swans between two impossibly European men, the taste of yellow, insects accumulating, temperature rising, increasingly picturesque views from urinal windows, tarmac, toll booths, tickets, the colour orange, then darkness and headlights).

I’ve travelled to the south of France to visit Jonathan and Helen Moss to partake in their Atelier artists’ residency scheme. Over the coming two weeks I’ll be working on a permanent site-specific installation, a light and sound performance, as well as various painted-projections in the surrounding Pyrenees. This blog will be updated regularly and will look to give some insight into my time here and how the residency unfolds. 

# 5 [14 October 2008]

My first weekend has been spent exploring. Jonathan his son and I drove to a nearby former holding camp where thousands were sent to Auschwitz pre-ww2; this place has been the source of much inspiration for Jonathan in recent years. We drove through various small villages, mountain passes, then flat Mediterranean planes and reached the beach where Jonathan informed me we would grab a drink and build sandcastles. Not so! The café where once excellent tuna steaks were grilled has all but vanished. Signs of summer diminished and autumn rapidly gaining momentum. Sandcastles completed.

The landscape is peppered with colour. Hues of orange and yellow are scattered within the surrounding expanses of green foliage. Winding empty roads lead to small villages and towns with no more than a dozen cars parked at any given time. A bridge named l’escargot (The Snail). It literally curls up within itself. (If you can’t think straight in a place like this there’s no hope).

The landscape changes daily. A recent frost has accelerated the seasons’ exchange and the leaves from trees are yellowing and falling. I’ve spent the past three nights projecting on one such tree adjacent to my chalet. I’ve been photographing it nightly, each time projecting light and painting the tree differently. It’s strange for me to spend so much time with one subject. In the past I’ve searched and found the right area of woodland, or a hanging branch, or flower, and photographed it (so simple sounding). After the act of lighting and documenting, the subject is forgotten. It blends back into the blanket of neighbouring trees as if nothing had taken place. The only record being a figurative representation of something that could well have taken place anywhere.

I have until Wednesday to complete photographing this tree. We’ll drive the two-and-a-half hours to Toulouse and spend a day waiting (somewhat) nervously for the piles of slides to be developed. Then over the course of two hours, the two hours that local businesses require for lunch, I’ll select the best suited slide for scanning: Then more waiting. The resulting photograph will then be used for the installation.

Saturday has been determined as the performance evening. The trees are shedding quicker than expected so the date has been brought forward almost a week. A friend of Jonathan and Helen’s has miraculously composed a piece of music in response to the images on my website. I’ve never met the man, never spoken with or emailed him, but on the afternoon that Helen wrote asking whether I could use a piece of pre-recorded sound to accompany the performance, he laid down a full thirty minutes of music. Incredible that there are people like him, so willing and genuinely excited to collaborate with a total stranger. There should be more like him!

# 6 [4 November 2008]

Thursday Jonathan and I drove to Toulouse. I’d completed photographing the tree on Wednesday evening and had stacks of refrigerated slide film ready for processing. After a somewhat difficult and tedious first encounter with the printers we waited for several hours in a nearby café—a day of people watching, coffee drinking, and somewhat anxious waiting (on my part at least). By the afternoon we found ourselves standing face to face with solemn technicians and colourful slide film in abundance. Limited time was such that a quick decision needed to be made over which image to use for the installation and for scanning; something that I never enjoy doing in fear of ultimately making the wrong decision.

Decision made, further waiting, acknowledging nods from locals, dusk drive home.

# 7 [4 November 2008]

The weather became less predictable as the week went on with rain forecast and delayed finally reaching us on Friday night through Saturday. The performance was set to be compromised and I started to wonder whether anyone would even make it to the evening.

By late afternoon the rain subsided and I began setting up for the performance. This was the first time I’d ever showcased my lighting techniques to a live audience, so the task was a little daunting. I’ve always acknowledged the performative aspects of my work and seen potential in removing the medium of photography from the viewers’ experience. But lighting for a photograph and for people is so totally different.

Löis Laplace’s music was a fantastic addition to the evening—a blind collaboration that somehow just worked. At 0730, as dark began to settle, I began illuminating the surrounding landscape out the window from the mezzanine of my chalet. The window was small and further dwarfed by my projector half leaning out of the available opening. I began to hear voices, laughter, friends chatting, and strangers meeting. People had obviously arrived but I had no idea how many, or what their reactions might be. After a good two hours I had finished lighting live, and set up a slideshow of the evenings performance.

Once again, I’m grateful to Löis for creating music specially for the occasion, and to the people who braved the cold and stayed longer than was necessary to be polite. It seemed the evening was a success and people seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the evening’s entertainment. Maybe this is the start of something different for me. 

# 8 [10 November 2008]

My final days in the Pyrenees were spent finishing my installation. In my original communication with Jonathan and Helen I had discussed many different ideas that might convince them and me to take on this project. The idea that got both sides most excited was to create an installation that could be permanently exhibited on the land surrounding the chalet. I intended to light and photograph an area of land, which would be determined when I arrived, building a frame for the resulting image. The frame would need to withstand the turbulent winters experienced in that part of the world, so it would need to be weatherproofed, whilst remaining aesthetically appealing. My idea was for the resulting image to be installed at the exact spot at which it was photographed. This idea was intended to engage the viewer with a view that remained, and an ephemeral one, that had been documented and presented in contrast to the present. In this way my work takes on a less anonymous guise; no longer plucked out from an unknown and forgotten location, the image stands directly in front of its subject, its inspiration if you like. The viewer is encouraged to look for change and similarity between both views and is allowed to see the transformation that took place with a more informed perspective. The image therefore speaks of change, of aesthetic appreciation for both the scene and its image, and like every photograph, the past.

Nothing much changed from those original thoughts; therefore the result was not overly surprising. I completed the piece the evening before I left France, and therefore I was unable to spend some time with it and really access how successful it was. My own niggling insecurities about the image are most likely influenced by my need to move on and produce something new, something detached from the work I have been doing for the past two years. What the image does represent for me is a more positive outlook. It’s as enthusiastically bright as it is dark. And although the colours are bright, and the contrast between light and dark still shine through, it’s a somewhat quieter image to my previous work. For me, it’s a piece for contemplation, and hopefully this is partly what it will represent for those who will now live with it.

I’d like to thank Jonathan and Helen and their two children Louis and Emilie for inviting me into their little corner of the world and sharing the experiences of the past weeks, and to all those I met along the way that made this experience memorable and worthwhile.

—Peter Watkins

# 9 [29 November 2008]

Our next artist in this residency programme is Rona Smith, a London-based sculptor and installation artist. We are very pleased to have Rona on this residency. She has just completed a window commission for Lumen United Reformed Church in Bloomsbury. More information can be found on her website: www.ronasmith.co.uk

Her proposed title for the piece she is creating is "Timelines". Rona will be contributing to this blog over the next few weeks and we will be documenting the evolution of her project in photos and video. 

# 10 [29 November 2008]

Day 1

Drawing back the curtains of my chalet window I blink at the luminous white landscape in front of me. Whilst delighted at the beauty of the scene (worthy of even the most ostentatious Christmas card) my plans to work on the ground seem somewhat threatened. This is my first morning in St Louis, about an hour’s drive from Perpignan on the edge of the French Pyrenees. I will be staying here for a two week residency working in the surrounding land.

Rather than spend the morning crunching around willing the snow to melt, I explore the area a little with Jonathan who lives and works here from his studio. I have purposefully arrived without materials, looking to use what is already here. I am keen to work with some of the striking red earth that makes up large areas of the local landscape. Jonathan and I begin the day by driving a short distance to collect some samples of its various shades, ranging from rhubarb crumble to Australian outback. I want to embed this earth into the grassy land surrounding the chalet for a time-based work which I anticipate changing slowly with the weather over the coming months and hopefully years. Details of this will follow.

We visit the pretty Rennes-le-Château where we examine a plethora of literature based on some lengthy speculations about hidden local treasure. It is very attractive to believe that this is a place rich in mystery, esoteria and secret societies as many excited historians would have you believe. It is equally conceivable however that thin rumours based on the acquired wealth of a certain 19th century priest have blown quite out of proportion and led to the various colourful claims that have been made concerning Templar Knights and the Holy Grail. Perhaps your level of sympathy with authors such as Dan Brown will decide!

On arrival back at the chalet the land is transformed by the sun. As quickly as the snow arrived, it has now vanished like a receding tide. I select a wide patch of turf to work with. Due to some regular nocturnal visitors this is largely based on how mole infested the grass has become over the last month or so. The smoothest area, which I spend the rest of the afternoon mowing, is just between the road and the chalet.

Helen and Jonathan have a truly wonderful home and workspace here. There are purple headed peaks in the distance, my breeze-blocked Hackney Wick studio is miles away and the silence is delicious.

Rona Smith