During the month of April, Roz Driscoll had the first artist’s residency at Space, Dartington Hall, Devon, UK, in preparation for a collaborative multi-sensory installation, Just Under the Surface, in Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, London, UK, May 6-19, 2011
April was the warmest, driest, earliest spring in English memory, providing me with a glorious month at Dartington Hall, a 2000 acre estate in Devon with a rich legacy in progressive education, environmental practices and the arts. The extraordinary gardens, grounds and community of Dartington Hall and town of Totnes created the context for a rich, productive month. I worked in a spacious studio in the former home of the renowned Dartington College of the Arts, where I made sculptures and drawings in preparation for the installation in London.
See www.dartington.org.
In London, we installed Just Under the Surface, an immersive, multi-sensory installation in the Crypt Gallery, a labyrinthine crypt under St Pancras Church. My collaborators, with whom I had worked for over a year on the project, were Tereza Stehlikova, film-maker, Bonnie Kemske, ceramacist, and Anais Tondeur, textile artist. We considered the crypt our fifth collaborator.
Drawing on the mythological imagery of the neoclassical church of St Pancras, I envisioned the crypt as the Greek underworld—Hades, land of the dead. Five rivers flowed through Hades: Lethe, river of forgetfulness; Styx, river of hate; Cocytus, lamentation; Acheron, sorrow and pain; and Phlegethon, fire. I had made the five rivers in my studio in Massachusetts during the winter and shipped them to London. During the Dartington residency I added two rivers to reflect the modern psyche: the rivers of disconnection and meaninglessness. The installation was richly sensory and immersive, engaging visitors in body and soul.
See www.rosalyndriscoll.com and www.artintouch.co.uk.
(images below L to R: River of Disconnection, River of Fire, River of Hate, River of Meaninglessness)
