Project outline:
CUT/STACK/BURN is a performative re-enactment of a redundant rural activity – furze cutting for domestic fuel (or gorse outside of Cornwall). The project uses art installation as a platform to develop a visual conversation about the implications and absence of sustainable approaches in the management of land and its resources. Our current use of energy in an age of climate change becomes a focal point and pivotal issue in this visual debate.
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cut/stack/burn
Project outline:
CUT/STACK/BURN is a performative re-enactment of a redundant rural activity – furze cutting for domestic fuel (or gorse outside of Cornwall). The project uses art installation as a platform to develop a visual conversation about the implications and absence of sustainable approaches in the management of land and its resources. Our current use of energy in an age of climate change becomes a focal point and pivotal issue in this visual debate.
25 February 2007
Bruce: talking of smoke can you explain a bit more on the forum about whether cut stack and burn will be helpful or harmful to the environment: or may be that's not the point…[Rupert White]
To be helpful or harmful? Well I would say that by being harmful I hope to be helpful. There a few points that this project circum-navigates…
I will cause pollution through burning the work [though not very much in comparison with oil, but atmospheric pollution it is]. There is little of what we do that does not have some consequence or other for the environment. But there are clearly both acceptable and unacceptable limits for the impact of our daily actions. The work and the burning of it, seeks to underline the inseparability of cause and effect in our lifestyles. The creation of smoke is a visual expression of this.
I have an interest in using sustainably resourced natural material derived from land management cycles – such as furze – informed by my art practice and nature conservation experience. I particularly wanted to use a material that was a by product of such a process that had not been created especially for my work, a material that had been cut by hand [machete] and not by power tool.
I have set out to create an interactive project with an audience using the landscape as a platform for its ideas while avoiding pictorial representation. In this case I have looked at what is happening to the landscape and have responded using visual methods such as performative re-enactment [cutting] and hands-on participation [stacking] with unconventional material and contexts that use materials to examine issues not traditionally associated in the realms of landscape art such as sustainability. This has entailed the gathering of material from the landscape in the preparation stages, to witnessing the transition from material mass to constructed form through performative events played out in the tamed environment of a subtropical garden. The final stage of the project, when the project is at its ‘zenith', will be to release the energy stored in it. The work will be set alight as furze traditionally was but not as a domestic fuel source. The burning of the work serves a practical purpose – to see the transition of energy stored in the material released into smoke/gases and heat. The releasing of this energy by combustion is effortless – and should be very quick. This conceptual action references the pressing of a button or flicking of a switch. This quick, easy and effortless familiarity is how the vast majority of us consume energy. To have taken so much time and effort to harvest an energy source and painstakingly build something only to destroy it the moment it has been created, sends echoes to me about our flippant regard to energy use.
We generally have no direct experience of the harnessing of energy we use. This is in direct contrast to the experiences of the people involved with the CUT/STACK/BURN project which sets out, in part, to illustrate the effort involved in procuring your own energy source.
In my practice an awareness of society's relationship with natural resources and our collective use of energy have emerged in my work and I am eager to explore how a visual interpretation of this might proceed. How contemporary artists can engage in a relevant way with the environment, landscape or whatever name you would call it, given the legacy that, on a regional level at least, still appears to be encumbered by pictorial representation is of interest to me. Often, when the use of landscape is used as subject matter in painting for example, a principle theme -the evocation/translation of beauty – becomes an obsession. But is that the only way to engage with the landscape? What does that tell us about it? Is that all it is a thing of beauty? I believe this is not only a limited and blinkered view but also a dangerous one. When art lacks meaning it becomes decoration. The same happens when the landscape is treated in a similar way. It becomes a product to be packaged, to be manipulated and marketed solely as a place of leisure. Our relationship with it becomes diminished and superficial. I think that ‘pretty' needs to be taken out of the picture completely. The pictorial representation of the landscape holds no interest for me but a work that looks beneath the surface of what it is and means to the people who use it and tries to address the issues it faces appears to me to be a far more relevant way to engage with it.
17 February 2007
16 February 2007
the form of the construction has now moved on a fair bit since its first conception. Originally I had been interested in forms that referenced the domestic home where we expend most of our energy and also the architecture of the farm environment. I looked at barns/yards/haystacks/enclosures etc which in turn led me to consider the more modern intensive architecture of farm storage facilities such as slurry pits/containers/silage clamps etc, and finally to focus on large scale industrial circular fuel storage tanks [given that the furze rick is in itself a fuel store] for oil/gas/petrol and so on. The dimensions of the work will be built as a ring in the region of 20m in diameter and 2.5m in height at its highest point. It will be built on a sloping field over looking Mounts Bay. The interior of the work will be accessible through a narrow opening at the upper most part of the circle.
My practice is concerned with examining ways in which contemporary art can engage the landscape in a valid interactive discourse not based solely on a one way observational relationship. It is an exploration of the relationship between artist and environment and the how the sociological landscape figures in contemporary art, by looking at the artists' use of the landscape as a source of inspiration. An important part of this is the annexation of the landscape as product, cultural change towards it and the potential for disenfranchisement that may incur. My interests and inevitable enquiries, led to a variety of social topics concerned with apparent schisms in Cornwall's resident community's needs and desires contrasted against those of a transitory tourist population and a landscape under pressure. The way these needs play out and the friction that ensues with each user group is of significant interest. This, in connection with the history of Cornwall's past and present art community, presented a series of questions for me. How does a practising artist, responding to the landscape as a source of inspiration, fit into Cornwall's contemporary cultural context? Are the present socio-economic situations, and the issues and cultural practices that change it more of a pressing concern than the depiction of the landscape itself? Could a visual interpretation of the shifting sociological importance of the landscape be of more relevance than pictorial representation? How can this proceed?
Well the carbon emission thing got a bit lost in the mix. There is a crucial word missing from the text. It should read 'furze smoke is not as carbon-producing like fossil fuels'. Its an important point to the work that pollution is caused by the burning of the work. It emphasises the fact that little of what we do is free from any environmental impact. Although I have gone out of my way to create a work that uses sustainable materials that are already part of an existing process, the use of diesel powered transport to move the material conflicts with the projects sub title 'sustainable sculpture in an age of climate change'. Which is meant to be as much a question as a proclaimation.
It is about our attiude to energy but its also about how as artists we interact with the natural environment too. Its often the case that when working in issue based fields that the art becomes less than central – no matter- but at the heart of this visual debate is an attempt to move away from pictorial representation when using the landscape as subject matter or inspiration and begin an investigation into how art can use the landscape in a more relevant way. The 'pretty' needs to be removed from the landscape/land art 'picture' altogether.
31 January 2007
Since finsihing the fine art course at University College Falmouth in the summer of last year I have spent my time developing the frame work for an artist residency with the National Trust. It came at a time when, given our geographical distance from everywhere, I was beginning to feel fairly isolated. I knew if I were to stay in Cornwall I would have to adopt a fairly innovative approach in my art practice. I set about to capitalise on Cornwall's geographic isolation by using the landscape, so often referred to in artists work in Cornwall, to address subjects that were important to me. Prior to UCF I worked in nature conservation before returning to study the remainder of my fine art degree that I had left in late1998 [brought about by a severe hearing loss].
On many occasions during my career in nature conservation I had found myself approaching and trying to tackle projects from a creative perspective. This wasn't always practical and left me feeling that in some cases much more could be achieved if we were able to blur the boundaries between art and non-art disciplines and work more closely when working toward similar/connected goals.
The ideas I had through this time involved amalgamations of working processes and creative solutions. These were mostly time consuming and laborious visual proposals that did not fit into the conventional budget constraints of a nature conservation organisation for example. Whilst at UCF the dynamics of my course and home life meant that they had to be shelved further still. In this time I worked sporadically on the conceptual nature of these ideas.
On leaving UCF I began to develop these ideas afresh and saw that a residency with the NT as being the best way to pursue them. The residency lasts for a year and CUT/STACK/BURN is the first of four seasonally based projects responding to the properties on the lizard and Penrose estate, Helston.
Furze was harvested from heath land [or rough ground] and was once a primary source of domestic fuel for cooking and heating in west Cornwall. The management of furze in this way was part of an ancient and traditional method that ensured extensive grazing for livestock. The cutting of furze provided a varied mix of plant and grasses which thrived on this management. It was also used as an industrial fuel used in tin smelting and for burning in lime kilns.
Source [P. Dudley, Historic Environment Service
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=28957]
After lots of cutting the National Trust volunteers and staff, have cut lots of furze ready to be bundled into faggots. This has been part of their heath land management for this area and provides the main bulk of CUT/STACK/BURNs' material. We are doing this now and have already got 50 or so faggots of about 8ft in length and 3ft wide. The access is tricky as it is a fair way from the nearest track so there is a fair amount of carrying to come. . I estimate that we will need something like 150 to complete the installation at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens.
Weather report: [I am an anorak]
It's been really excellent weather this week! [ talking about and watching the weather has become very obsessive] no wind – still in fact- a rare treat and no rain – which is good as the ground won't get so churned up when we take the faggots out. It's been warm too, I saw my first Red Campion today and the furze is getting ready for a vibrant display.
This week saw the HEATH project [http://www2.blogger.com/www.theheathproject.org.uk] joining Arts Council England and the National Trust as funders for the project.
This is an extract from their website –
The North-West Europe heathland landscape is of great ecological, economic and cultural significance, but is in long-term qualitative and quantitative decline. The loss of direct economic and cultural links that formerly sustained heathland is a major cause of its decline. The HEATH (Heathland, Environment, Agriculture, Tourism, Heritage) Project aims to re-establish the social and economic integration that was once associated with heathland environments. This will be achieved by reintroducing and improving habitat management practices and by communicating and promoting heathlands as a potential valuable resource with a valuable historical context. The key objective of the HEATH project is to develop a management model and tool kit that will establish and help guide future heathland management and be applicable across the NWE heathland landscape.
The HEATH project is made up of many international organisations. This support will be mutually useful in promoting the work and extending the audience of CUT/STACK/BURN and importantly that of the HEATH project and its' ‘Heath Fest' in September 2007. [For more info please visit their website]. The linking of different organisations working with similar issues is of interest to me as it enables the work to travel into different arenas and work more effectively.
Cutting and stacking at Keigwin farm
The furze harvesting started with the Guy family and friends at Keigwin farm on the north coast of West Penwith this week. The Guy family share grazing on the heath above their farm and they are trying to bring it back in as extensive rough grazing. After a few days cutting we moved the furze by trailer back to the farm where the ‘ricking' commenced. There isn't much in the way of photographic records of furze in ricks [stacks] generally. For our purposes the constraints of the mow hay and nearby barns determined the size, shape and position. A circular form was favoured as this allowed us to interlock the stems, thus holding each other in place, safeguarding against the strong wind experienced on that coast line. From a picture of a furze rick at Dowran, St Just that I have seen [C18] the rick appears to have been covered on the top by a canvas tarpaulin and covered in an old fishing net and weighed down. Once the top of the rick has been rounded off [its flat at the present – awaiting more material] it will be interesting to see how this fairs, by comparison, in the next gale. [I'll try to get permission to post the photo on the blog so you can see it yourself]. One of my interests is how we adapt old techniques to suit new circumstances. So from this point I don't intend to replicate a particular rick structure but to fit it to the needs of the project, though in principal I would imagine it remains very much unchanged.
The children approached the harvesting and stacking with gusto and later enjoyed the rewards of the hard work by turning the rick into a natural trampoline. It reminded me of tree climbing, springing about on the branches. I have no doubt this was a practice that use to happen in days past. It was good to see that no one particularly bothered about the scratches endured throughout the day and was an enjoyable way of illustrating how energy was once sustainably produced.
16 January 2007
CUT/STACK/BURN – A prickly kind of heat adds to climate change debate
Visual Artist Bruce Davies is to build a public sculpture out of furze at the sub-tropical Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance…and then set fire to it! He will be gathering the furze during February and constructing a large installation with it over a 3 week period in March.
The culmination of the project, entitled CUT/STACK/BURN, coincides with the start of British summer time and is a specific reference to our relationship to energy use. On the 25th of March the sculpture will be burnt at a public event, not as a domestic fuel as furze traditionally was, but as a frivolous action that reflects on our attitude to energy consumption and finite natural resources.
Bruce, who is funded by Arts Council England's Grants for the arts programme, has developed this project in collaboration with the National Trust as part of his year long artist residency based on the Lizard and Penrose estate Helston. CUT/STACK/BURN is motivated by the cultural history of lowland heaths and the working processes that occur there. The project focuses on using sustainably resourced natural waste products from heath land management on the Lizard and Penwith to develop a visual work about the large scale absences of such approaches in the management of land and natural resources.
In February the furze will be cut and stacked into ricks at various rural locations for drying and then removed at a later date to be built into a large sculpture at Tremenheere. The harvesting of the material is a collaborative effort between the artist, landowners, conservation groups and local communities. In March, school children and volunteers will be working as a team with Bruce as lead artist to help bind and shape the furze into to the main sculpture.
"Furze cutting used to be part of a traditional sustainable cycle of land use; it was a major source of fuel in Cornwall and else where,' says Bruce. ‘I am using this as an example of good practice in contrast to how we produce and use energy today. We haven't had to go out to cut and collect gorse on a wind blasted heath to power our ipods, washing machines or whatever. If we did, rather than press buttons, perhaps we might be more thoughtful about how we use energy. In a symbolically frivolous act, after months of laborious cutting, stacking and building I am going to burn the furze sculpture to the ground.'
Ends
05 December 2006
In early February the harvesting of furze will begin in earnest. This will be done with the assistance of conservation agencies/volunteers and farmers. The furze will be stacked into ricks [stacks] to dry and later transported to Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance. In march the construction of an installation will begin with help form a number of schools. It will be a team effort of carrying, bending and binding the furze into the art work and will resemble the outline of agricultural buildings and related landscape features like haystacks. In the mean time through December and January I'll be constructing furze ricks on various harvesting sites spread across the Lizard and Penwith. The position of these will be announced as the project progressess and will be able to be seen on site and via images on this blog.
While researching the background about the cultrual uses for furze and lowland heaths I came upon the 'recipe' for Poor mans holly. These were used as a substitute for holly wreaths at Christmas. Without wanting to sound too Blue Peter-ish – it's really easy to do and very effective!.. and free…and prickly. All you need is the determination to go out on a wind blasted heath and a pair of secatares. Once you've got the brute home wet it under the tap, give it a quick knock to shake the big drips off and sprinkle white [not wholemeal] flour over it through a sieve, until the required 'I've been hit with an avalanche look' has been achieved. Then go out and find some red berries and stick them on. Sorted! A traditional and sustainably sourced Christmas decoration!
29 November 2006
Cornwall's natural environment, geographical position and cultural history are distinctive. I took these features as a starting point in developing a year long residency with the National Trust on the Lizard and on the Penrose estate, Helston. The project is motivated by the cultural history of lowland heaths and the working processes that occur there. I have an interest in using sustainably resourced natural material derived from land management cycles – such as furze – informed by my experiences in art and nature conservation over the last decade. During this time an awareness of society's relationship with natural resources and our collective use of energy have emerged in my work and I am eager to explore how a visual interpretation of this might proceed. I am equally interested to understand how contemporary artists can engage with the environment, or landscape, given the legacy that, on a regional level at least, still appears to be encumbered with issues of pictorial representation.
Visual artist
