Cumbrian Arts Development Agency Eden Arts have spoken of their shock and astonishment following what they believe to be deliberate vandalism of an artwork commissioned for their annual visual arts event, C-Art.
Part of the new Art in Extraordinary Places strand of the festival and one of four ‘micro-commissions’ responding to the Cumbrian landscape, Alice Francis’ Hilltop Rest Hotel was a temporary installation staked to the summit of Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain.
The playful and humorous work looked at tourism in the Lake District from the perspective of birds, a miniature ’boutique hotel’ offering ‘a welcome break for nature-loving and travel weary birds alike’.
Francis tethered the wooden structure as part of a costumed performance on the mountain, where it was due to remain ‘open’ for a week. A few days later the artist posted photos of the damaged work on Facebook, which have prompted a host of comments.
Eden Arts wrote: “While there is a clear and debatable issue of what people might think is appropriate for any siting of art, there is also an appropriate way of responding to it … the intolerance, and frankly arrogant yobbery in destroying it is utterly unacceptable.”
Francis does, however, envisage a positive outcome. The artist plans to incorporate photographs of the debris, along with filmed documentation of her climb, into a new moving-image piece, to be presented at Eden Arts’ Winter Droving event in November.
“I would like to consider this to be the beginning of the artwork,” she says, “an opportunity for debate.”
