Judith Tucker and Harriet Tarlo
There is an ever more urgent preoccupation with complex and controversial environmental issues. How might we understand ideas of place in a time of accelerating environmental change? How could we work together to respond? Do artists and poets have anything to show us about the potential of collaboration?
Between 6th and 29th September 2017 SIA and Bank Street Arts, Sheffield, U.K. hosted In The Open: collaborative artworks around place, landscape and environment, an exhibition of work by over 60 artists from around the world curated by Judith Tucker and Harriet Tarlo. This photo essay reflects some of the work and energy of this show. This overlapped with the ASLE-UKI & Land2 Conference 2017: Cross Multi Inter Trans conference and included readings and performances in the gallery spaces.
All the work in this two-venue exhibition was made by at least two collaborators across a wide range of disciplines to explore ideas around place, ecology and environment. Some of the work was made by established collaborative pairs, for example: Thomas A Clark and Diane Howse, Kevin Greenfield and Inge Panneels, Andrea Thoma and Deborah Gardner, Judith Tucker and Harriet Tarlo. Other works in the exhibition resulted from the curators inviting expressions of interest from artists and poets eighteen months in advance and then acting as brokers and pairing people up. Dan Eltringham and David Walker Barker, Laura-Gray Street and Anne-Marie Creamer, Barbary Howey and Ann Fisher-Wirth, Rebecca Thomas and Elizabeth-Jane Burnett all made new work in this way.
The resulting exhibition included art and text in a wide variety of media and scale, including artists’ books, paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations and moving image. The artists had taken their points of departure from many locations: Los Angeles to Malta, from Ilkley Moor to the Mississippi Delta, from Langsett to Singapore. All kinds of fieldwork had taken place with artists and poets exploring meadows, fields, disused canals, deserted quarries, high cliffs, coasts, seas, parks, orchards, forests, bogs, street signs, city walls and industrial buildings. Their work took audiences on journeys along rivers from tiny streams to expansive deltas, from places as high as Snowdon to deep underground in an abandoned mine. Others conflate real and imagined places, working simultaneously with possible past, present and futures. The works reflect, resist and critique the long traditions and aesthetics of landscape art and writing, reinterpreting, in a contemporary idiom, notions of the romantic, picturesque and gothic. Others are more speculative and ruminate on wider issues of social and environmental change and offer possible future propositions. Whilst there was inevitably consideration of environmental degradation, as a whole the exhibition was not elegiac and the slow looking, the slow making, the slow writing and a deep concern with particularity of place seems to offer a sense of hopeful new/old ways of being in the world.
Click on the images below to see a larger image.
- 2. Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts
- 3. Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts
- 4. Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts with Adrian Evans, Carole Webster and Steve Baker.
- 5. Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts featuring Dan Eltringham, David Walker Barker, Harriet Tarlo and Judith Tucker
- 6. Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts with Kevin Greenfield and Inge Paneels
- 7. Installation at Bank Street with Thomas A Clark and Diane Howse
- 8. a slow air 1 words by Thomas A. Clark, photography by Diane Howse, 2016
- 9. a slow air 1 words by Thomas A. Clark, photography by Diane Howse, 2016
- 10. Damage Poison Beauty Ooze, words by Ann Fisher-Wirth, paintings by Barbara Howey, 2017
- 11. From Longdendale Lights to Shining Clough, words by Laura-Gray Street and moving image by Anne-Marie Creamer, 2017 (video below)
- 12. Read These Leaves animation by Bethan Hughes, words by Caitlin Stobie, 2017 (video below)
- 13. Field Notes / Field Study, words by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and images by Rebecca Thomas, 2017
- 14. Field Notes / Field Study, words by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and images by Rebecca Thomas, 2017
- 15. Bal na vodi (Dancing in Water), music by Barry Snaith, moving image by Eirini Boukla, 2017 (video below)
- 16. Searching for Jossie: Surface & Underground in the Landscape of Langsett & Midhope, words by Daniel Eltringham, images by David Walker Barker, 2017.
- 17. Searching for Jossie: Surface & Underground in the Landscape of Langsett & Midhope, words by Daniel Eltringham, images by David Walker Barker, 2017.
- 18. Thrift Jem Southam with David Chandler, Liz Nicol, Math Southam and Katelyn Toth-Fejel, 2014
- 19. Thrift Liz Nicol with Jem Southam, David Chandler, Liz Nicol, Math Southam and Katelyn Toth-Fejel, 2014
- 20. Claude Glass: Snowdon, glass by Inge Panneels and photography by Kevin Greenfield, 2016
- 21. Recycled Gardens words by Peter Jaeger and images by Josh Scammell 2017 (video below)
- 22. Of Plants and Planets, painting by Andrea Thoma and Sculpture by Deborah Gardner, 2017
- 23. Of Plants and Planets, painting by Andrea Thoma and Sculpture by Deborah Gardner, 2017
- 24. Outfalls, words by Harriet Tarlo and drawings by Judith Tucker 2017
- 25. Artists Books
- 26. Private View
11. From Longdendale Lights to Shining Clough, words by Laura-Gray Street and moving image by Anne-Marie Creamer, 2017
12. Read These Leaves animation by Bethan Hughes, words by Caitlin Stobie, 2017
15. Bal na vodi (Dancing in Water), music by Barry Snaith, moving image by Eirini Boukla, 2017
21. Recycled Gardens words by Peter Jaeger and images by Josh Scammell 2017
The artists in the exhibition were
Kim Anno, Steve Baker, Christine Baeumler, Iain Biggs, Emma Bolland, Trevor Borg, Eirini Boukla, John Bowers, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Anthony Catania, Clare Charnley, Luce Choules, Thomas A. Clark, Anne-Marie Creamer, Martin Cromie, Barbara Cumbers, Amy Cutler, Clare Davies, Gail Dickerson, Filippa Dobson, Laura Donkers, Dan Eltringham, Adrian Evans, Katy Ewing, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Deborah Gardner, Abigail Goodman, Gordian Projects, Kevin Greenfield, Lucy Sam Haighton, Steven Hitchins, Gillian Hobson, Rachel Hosein Nisbet, Barbara Howey, Diane Howse, Bethan Hughes, Linda Ingham, E. Jackson, Peter Jaeger, Andrew Jeffrey, Natalie Joelle, Jan Johnson, Jane Le Besque, Brian Lewis, Longbarrow Press, Anna Mace, Christine Mackey, Sean Martin, Peter Matthews, Gavin Maughfling, Mary Modeen, Moschatel Press, Sheila Mullen, Camilla Nelson, Ruth O’Callaghan, Martina O’Brien, Evelyn O’Malley, Mark Pajak, Inge Panneels, Kayla Parker, David Power, James Quinn, Anna Robinson, Anna Marie Savage, Beth Savage, Joshua Scammell, Alan Smith, Barry Snaith, Jem Southam, Judith Stewart, Caitlin Stobie, Laura-Gray Street, Harriet Tarlo, Chris Taylor, Andrea Thoma, Rebecca Thomas, Min-Wei Ting, Nick Triplow, Judith Tucker, Veronica Vickery, David Walker Barker, Carole Webster, Wild Pansy Press, Louise K. Wilson, Paul Wilson, Lucie Winterson, Jon Wrigley.
List of works above
- In the Open – poster from Sheffield designed by Paul Wilson.
- Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts
- Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts
- Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts with Adrian Evans, Carole Webster and Steve Baker.
- Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts featuring Dan Eltringham, David Walker Barker, Harriet Tarlo and Judith Tucker
- Installation at Sheffield Institute of the Arts with Kevin Greenfield and Inge Paneels.
- Installation at Bank Street with Thomas A Clark and Diane Howse
- a slow air 1 words by Thomas A. Clark, photography by Diane Howse, 2016.
- a slow air 1 words by Thomas A. Clark, photography by Diane Howse, 2016.
- Damage Poison Beauty Ooze, words by Ann Fisher-Wirth, paintings by Barbara Howey, 2017
- From Longdendale Lights to Shining Clough, words by Laura-Gray Street and moving image by Anne-Marie Creamer, 2017
- Read These Leaves animation by Bethan Hughes, words by Caitlin Stobie, 2017.
- Field Notes / Field Study,words by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and images by Rebecca Thomas, 2017
- Field Notes / Field Study,words by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and images by Rebecca Thomas, 2017
- Bal na vodi (Dancing in Water), music by Barry Snaith, moving image by Eirini Boukla, 2017
- Searching for Jossie: Surface & Underground in the Landscape of Langsett & Midhope, words by Daniel Eltringham, images by David Walker Barker, 2017.
- Searching for Jossie: Surface & Underground in the Landscape of Langsett & Midhope, words by Daniel Eltringham, images by David Walker Barker, 2017.
- Thrift Jem Southam with David Chandler, Liz Nicol, Math Southam and Katelyn Toth-Fejel, 2014
- Thrift Liz Nicol with Jem Southam, David Chandler, Liz Nicol, Math Southam and Katelyn Toth-Fejel, 2014
- Claude Glass: Snowdon, glass by Inge Panneels and photography by Kevin Greenfield, 2016
- Recycled Gardens words by Peter Jaeger and images by Josh Scammell 2017
- Of Plants and Planets, painting by Andrea Thoma and Sculpture by Deborah Gardner, 2017
- Of Plants and Planets, painting by Andrea Thoma and Sculpture by Deborah Gardner, 2017
- Outfalls, words by Harriet Tarlo and drawings by Judith Tucker 2017
- Artist books
- Private View
Copyright notice: Images above are copyright the individual artists and writers and may not be used without permission. In the first instance contact info.plumwoodmountain@gmail.com with any inquiries about reuse.
For further details on individual works please see the exhibition website.