AN EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITY: Heathland artworks
29 JUNE - 30 OCTOBER 2022
RSPB FARNHAM HEATH, THE REEDS ROAD, TILFORD, GU10 2DL
Heathland Artworks is a partnership between Surrey Hills Arts, the University of the Creative Arts (Farnham) and the RSPB at Farnham Heath. The aims of the organisations are to develop outdoor, accessible contemporary art in support of UCA students artistic development. Heathland Artworks provides an opportunity for students to develop site-specific proposals for an exterior space that will seek to open a dialogue around ecological, historical and/or physical attributes from the Farnham Heath.
I first visited Farnham Heath last summer to see 2 previous MA Students artworks selected for the 2021 Heathland Artworks exhibition. The landscape is quite different to what I am used to, living in Hampshire among the rolling South Down grasslands. The heath was dry, open and exposed. The soil was sandy and poor with very little obvious nutrients for plant and animal habitation. I came to learn that heathland provides a niche habitat for specific birds and invertebrates which rely on these particular conditions and habitat. I also came to learn that heathland is not a natural habitat, created entirely by human intervention such as grazing for animals and cutting heath and gorse for fuel. They also made brooms from heather and birch, cut heather for thatch and bracken for animal bedding, soap and glass making. Regular cutting, grazing and burning kept the landscape open. Over time exhausted farm use stripped the land of its original vegetation, exposing the soil so that when it rained the nutrients were washed out, leaving it poor and acidic.
It seemed a foreign land to me, a terrain I could not comprehend or identify with, hostile even. I suppose I could also attribute this sensation to my upbringing. I was brought up in New Zealand on a kiwifruit orchard. The soil is so fertile in this part of the world because of its rich, free draining volcanic soil and relatively abundant rainfall, that plants grow easily and fast. The nature of a kiwifruit vine takes on a triffid quality where the years work and toil is mostly concerned with containing the unruly nature of the plant. I think because of this and my work that is influenced by the Hampshire fields and soil, I did not warm instantly to the Farnham Heath landscape. But I kept thinking this would be a lost opportunity, and endeavoured to dig a little deeper so that I might understand it and respond it.
The opening idea that allowed me to begin the process of formulating a proposal which could suit the site-responsive nature of the exhibition was from a drawing I did in January. This was a chalk drawing on black paper. The marks traced the large iron rods which I had found in the soil while working in the land and was part of another project focused on the process of enlarging scale in the work. (See blog WORKSHOP: Blow Up, 23 January 2022). The drawing directed research towards ancient land drawings found in southern chalky English landscapes. Although chalk was not a substance found in the heathland, it led me towards an inquiry that looked into the particular qualities of its soil and land management in order to formulate methods and processes of mark making in the land that could make sense. At this stage I began to get excited about the possibilities for the project and began to move towards research which reflected the nature of land art and the activities and management common to the creation of heathland.
