Tankwa Artscape Residency at Stonehenge Private Reserve
Concept
Imagine a desert floor, undisturbed by human traffic. It’s not the absence of life that is so dramatically visual. It is a few million years old retrospective of ancient seabed and cataclysmic geological events in Earth history, and the footprint of storms and water flow in the riverbeds. Vast pans nudge aside scrub and vlei and gentle hills and land, which drop outside of the quick glance, towards a perimeter of deep-set mountain horizon.
Across some of the expanse of tight scrub and dark flatland there is a bicycle track that may have traversed this space anytime between two weeks and twenty years ago; a rut has embedded itself into spongy soil between the rocks. Weathering has deepened the impression, the impact from which erosion has begun.
You could say it defines the beginnings of consciousness, that bicycle track. It represents a challenge that will always be here: to what extent should this kind of impact be acceptable. And where is the compromise?
As an artist how do we respond to this landscape in a way that pays respect to the unique desert aesthetic?
The original ‘gate-keepers’ of the land here lived light on the ground. Who should be the present and future ‘curators’ of this landscape, and what responsibility comes with that curatorship?
It is the artist who is able to leave another kind of impression, a way of seeing that can affect the conscious gaze of anyone passing or experiencing their work. In the end, if the art is offered with the right intention, the aim of this project has been fulfilled.
Considering what is the ‘right intention’ is where the work begins.
Themes of shelter versus open space, nourishment versus scarcity, protection versus vulnerability start to define what is naturally happening in that landscape.
The fauna, flora, geology and history of the Tankwa and its people will further inform artistic concepts.
Deadline for applications: 15 December 2023
For mere information se her.
For ansøgning se her.