Entangle brings together works that poetically respond to the complex relationships and rhythms that exist between the human and the vegetal, the myths and mysteries that arise and the impact of this entanglement on the human psyche. The exhibition will focus on artist film and performance (a mixture of live performance and documentation).
1 - 19 August 2018
Open Wed - Sun 11 am - 5 pm
Preview: Tuesday 31 July, 6:30 - 9 pm
Azadeh Fatehrad, The Whispers of the Garden (still), 2018
Rachel Pimm, FYE-kuss e-LASS-tick-uh
Sarah Duffy performance, 2017
diep~haven is a cross-channel festival of contemporary creation which takes place annually in East Sussex and Normandy, rooted in the towns of Newhaven and Dieppe. Built through a process of collaboration and exchange, diep~haven understands that cultural activity plays an essential role in constructing the way that we live together. diep~haven hosts international artists in residence across an extended cross-channel territory, working in partnership with local businesses, cultural and community organisations to support artists in the creation of new works. The summer festival presents new contemporary artworks as part of a wider programme of exhibitions, events and engagement projects, structured around a central theme.
‘Entangle’ incorporates artworks produced by those diep~haven artists in residence who have poetically explored the intertwining of or slippage between human and landscape, the myths and mysteries that arise between the two and the impact of this entanglement on the human psyche.
The exhibition takes its cue from a photograph by Victorian artist and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll; a staged image of a gardener dressed as a monk in the woods, a strange and romantic vision that harks back to an even earlier time and invites reflection on the idea of communing with nature.
This emphasis on staging is continued through the re-presentation of two performances created during short residencies as responses to the grounds of the Chateau de Bosmelet in Normandy. Sarah Duffy’s piece explores the myth of the Greek goddess Demeter, whose supposed grief for her stolen daughter Persephone and joy at her return explained the changing seasons. Essi Kausalainen’s song was composed for the garden of the Chateau and its inhabitants, intended to refigure the emotional landscape of the human in the garden with the help of the vegetal beings – by calling on their sensitivities.
From refiguring an emotional landscape to an actual one, Gabriela Albergaria’s drawings are semi-imagined configurations of natural landscapes that she has encountered. Her work for this exhibition takes as it’s starting point her residency at National Trust Sheffield Park and Garden where she has created a new large-scale sculpture ‘Inanimate Object, or a complete cycle of the soil’, which is also included as part of the festival.
Azadeh Fatehrad is presenting ‘The Whispers of the Garden’, created during her residency at Bois des Moutiers in Normandy. The garden, which was designed along theosophical principles, lies at the intersection of Western and Eastern philosophies. Azadeh Fatehrad’s work reflects on the complex co-existence of materiality and spiritual life; chaotic wild nature and the formality of plants arranged in lines; and the temporality of figures and the permanency of patterns evident at Bois des Moutiers.
These pieces are accompanied by other new and existing works that further explore aesthetic, linguistic and biological entanglements between the human and the vegetal. Suzanne Walsh is creating a poetic text for the gallery that explores the relationship between time, language and land. ‘FYE-kuss e-LASS-tick-uh’ (2014) by Rachel Pimm is a two channel video work in which the soundwaves of the narrator’s voice have a striking formal similarity to leaves suggesting a increasing convergence and coexistence of the natural and the technological and man made, whilst Joey Holder’s piece ‘Porphyrin’ (2017) takes its title from a substance common to blood, plants and oil, reinforcing the ultimate connectedness of all things.
There will be live performances by Suzanne Walsh and Sarah Duffy during the opening event on 31 July.
