oneplace is a landscape based contemporary arts programme which took place at Tatton from 2005 – 2008.
During this time it supported a critical framework that articulated Tatton Park’s ‘sense of place’ and created opportunities for a range of arts practitioners to explore and interpret the historic, current and future landscape of Tatton Park and its unique history and relationship between landscape, architecture and people.
The project offered opportunities for a range of arts practitioners to create new work in a range of artforms. oneplace was planned to support a wide and diverse programme of activity. This included inviting internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy to be part of the oneplace programme.
Andy Goldsworthy came to Tatton Park on two week long work periods in November 2005 (Winter Works) and July 2007 (Summer Works). In the former he used the very cold weather to advantage by making sculptures which used ice as well as incorporating other materials such as branches and leaves close to one of the ice ponds. This historical feature had not been used at Tatton Park in more than a century to harvest ice and his work linked together the historical and contemporary aspects of Tatton Park’s landscape.
One of his
Winter pieces featured in the December 21
st 2005 issue of
The New York Times. His other period of work saw him use leaves, rushes, thorns, branches and rain to create works within the context of the Beech Avenue near to the Choragic Monument. (The Temple)
oneplace also supported emerging practitioners to develop new work, career opportunities and profile. Applications were generated from arts practitioners from the UK who had completed a professional training within the previous 5 years, or were currently engaged on MA or other research courses, or had a noninstitutional career development.
Appointed residency practitioners were Rob Vale, Helen Jacobs, Christopher Mayo, Samantha Donnelly, Lucie Potter and Sam Clayton & Mark Jacobs. Between them they created a new series of artworks using sculpture, film, music and sound which explored Tatton Park in new and significant ways.
Rob Vale used film with a combination of installation, dance and music to explore the landscape. He filmed a dancer in many different locations throughout the grounds. The work le ballet de cour is based on the passage of time in a place. The dancer passes through a multi-split screen, moving from different landscape settings and through the seasons.
Helen Jacobs used craft, fine art and photography to explore the landscape through its inter-relationship with the Mansion House and the influence of home and the experience of the nurturing, protective and yet restrictive boundaries that are inherently created from domesticity. The artworks she produced are part sculptures, part furnishings, part installations, part archives and also refer to hiding and restricting, recording and remembering.
Christopher Mayo composed a new piece of music ‘Tatton Park’. He was interested in various aspects of the gardens and parklands, but the most inspirational element was the interaction between light and dark which takes place throughout Tatton Park. He focused on this contrast between sunlight and shadow, and its interaction with the natural architecture of the parklands as the central idea in the work.
Samantha Donnelly worked in the Japanese Gardens. She used different mediums - collage, sculpture and photography - to research differences in permanent structures against the flux of nature and to explore symbolic apertures in the gardens to frame or create ideal views. Some of the pieces were made in ice, suspended in the Japanese Garden and allowed to melt, others were small sculptures made from plaster and painted.
Lucie Potter created a 40 minute Sound Walk and recorded the sounds of Tatton’s daily routines, walking through the land in quiet and busy times as well as daytime and night-time field recordings of the wildlife and deer. She explored how visitors engage with Tatton walking through the land following paths and the trails, using the Visitors’ map. The finished work takes the listener through the landscape, layers of history, mixed sounds and narrative stories.
Sam Clayton and Mark Jacobs concentrated on the Choragic Monument and the presence of aircraft from Manchester Airport. They made a series of Choragic Monument models which lit up at night, and which were used to create “runways” in both the formal gardens and Tatton Park estate. The work touches on the historical and the (un)natural, the social and the spatial, folly and ruin, the geological and the aeronautical.
An important part of oneplace was its Education and Access programme which gave a wide variety of groups and individuals from Cheshire and the North West an opportunity to be more closely involved in the project through workshops, talks, exhibitions and a seminar. Rob Vale’s workshops enabled adult, college and secondary pupils to create their own animated mobile phone film: Helen Jacobs ran sessions where Tatton Park furnishing textiles were used to make covers for participants’ personal objects: Christopher Mayo worked with a group of young composers at Sir John Deane’s College, Northwich, to support them in making their own compositions: Samantha Donnelly worked with several Primary School and special needs groups to make drawings, paintings and sculptures using the Japanese Gardens, trees and colour for stimulus: Lucie Potter worked in Ellesmere Port with an adult special needs group who created their own audio sound work using sounds from the local park: Sam Clayton & Mark Jacobs offered an opportunity to build Choragic Monument Lanterns through workshop leader Paula Chambers.
oneplace is supported and funded by Cheshire County Council, Arts Council England North West, Cheshire Rural Enterprise, National Trust, PRS Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn foundation and Manchester Airport.
oneplace is being developed and project managed with the assistance of ARTS UK.
For further information about ARTS UK, oneplace and applying for a residency please visit the ARTS UK website.
