Sally Underwood - Broomhill Sculpture Prize

By September

2010-09-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

www.sallyunderwood.co.uk
www.underwoodink.com

I went to visit the work at the beginning of September to see what has happened to it. I was delighted to see that my perception in the site's fecundity had proved accurate; the area was overrun with wild grasses, flowers and ferns. And the ferns I had planted as part of the work had taken will and grown with vigour.
The impermanence of the work, on account of it being made from vulnerable, pervious materials sits well with the surrounding foliage whose days are also numbered.
The structure had maintained its shape but the plywood was trying to warp and split as it absorbed the Devon weather. The grid-like layered, glued and screwed structure, resists the movement in the materials, and so exposes the work's tension between stasis and entropy.

The logs were miraculously still in place although I knew they weren't quite where I left them. A construction worker on the site had put them in the skip. Rinus rescued them.

Statement about the work

2010-06-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sculpture in the environment presents me with something of a challenge: I find myself wondering whether the site would be better left empty. When nature is doing its job of occupying a space it seems that it could easily make a fool of one who assumed they can better it, Yet we have an impetus to occupy and control space and we need to construct shelters for ourselves. Shortly after arriving at Broomhill the word ‘fecund’ came into my mind and lodged itself there for the duration of the installation. As the issues of hubris and fecundity jostled in my mind with the desire to create a shelter in the woods, my solution was to half-occupy the space and allow nature to join the party, so I left the igloo frame open and vulnerable to its environment.

The final piece suggests a thwarted or abandoned project to make the camp in the woods, but occupies the space subtly so that some some angles it becomes almost invisible.

www.sallyunderwood.co.uk

underwoodink.com

Project completed

2010-05-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

I will return to Broomhill at the beginning of September to see whether nature has invaded the work.. or maybe just left it alone.

I am now back in Berlin and have had 48 hours to reflect on my experiences at Broomhill. First of all, the food was delicious and Rinus and Aniet are fantastic hosts, add this to the sunshine and exploding spring flora and you can't have a much more pleasant way to spend a few days in the English countryside.

The work

Images of the work and its location in the park.

The process

The fecund atmosphere of the forest infected the work. The siting of it meant that a much lighter, less intrusive piece would be much more appropriate than the one I had planned. I also wanted to it to be quite open and vulnerable to its environment.

I built the frame as planned. But, having arrived with the flat-pack igloo and a selection of materials to cover the frame, I decided to leave the frame open and uncovered so that the work would be affected by the weather and invaded by the plant and animal life. It also meant that the work would sit more comfortably in its environment. In a gallery situation, I would not want an object to operate in this way but in this situation I had no desire to set up a battle between my work and its environment.

Once the frame was constructed I built up some soil banks and planted ferns, nettles and clods of grassy earth. (ferns are fascinating because of their curly form, sporophyte reproduction and close similarity to pre-historic plant life). The final result of my gardening had slight echoes of a newly planted garden on building site. I then collected logs and stapled underlay around them and arranged them one might a logfire.

Berlin stage now shipped to London

2010-04-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

The framework for my domed dwelling is now complete and left the BBK werkstat in Berlin on Friday 16th April.

It will arrive in London on 23rd April.

I'll return to London at the beginning of May to collect all the materials which will make up the outside of the structure and drive these and contents of the crate down to Devon.

2010-04-06T13:20:00.001-07:00

See blog and website

Work in progress at BBK's Sculpture Workshop in Berlin.

Fotos: Ulf Dieter

Statement

The work shown at Broomhill will be a response to Sally Underwood’s increasingly nomadic life.

This restlessness has inspired a body of work concerned with how we define and shelter, the meaning of ‘home’ in a physical and temporal sense and in archetypal nomadic dwelling structures. Underlying this new work though is her continued interest in impermanence, entropy and the pleasures that can derived from destruction.

The circular, domed structure that she is building for Broomhill will be intentionally unstable and will change over time, hopefully being invaded by nature, as the built-structure recedes and the natural structure from nature and plant growth comes to the fore.

The qualities of home are reflected in the circle (O), an ancient symbol for safety, equality, inclusiveness, and eternity. The construction of the wooden frame for the dome allows for some indulgence in geometry and joy in the convoluted process of making it compared with the ease that the structures that is based were constructed by their inventors.

See blog and website