Skip to main content
Read page text
page 46
Above: Ash to Ash, installed at White Horse Country Park © Ackroyd & Harvey. Photograph © Manuel Vason Top right: Beuys’ Acorns 2007 - ongoing © Ackroyd & Harvey Bottom right: Beuys’ Acorns installed at The Lark Descending exhibition, St Martins Walk, Dorking 2018 © Ackroyd & Harvey work, and has driven them on to produce many award-winning and iconic ‘living’ pieces, including the striking History Trees, a series of 10 mature trees holding huge engraved rings at the entrances to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. Other memorable and thought-provoking commissions include largescale artworks built into the David Attenborough Building at Cambridge University. An open-ended project called Beuys’ Acorns began in 2007 when the artists germinated hundreds of acorns collected from influential German artist Joseph Beuys’ seminal artwork 7000 Oaks. The young trees will soon create centrepieces for much-needed conversations and interactions that Ackroyd & Harvey are planning at venues around the UK. But it is their trademark grass seedling works that continue to intrigue them and that they return to time and again. “The opportunity to regrow the coats for an action at Fashion Week was irresistible,” they admit. They first showed the living artworks, which take 44 Resurgence & Ecologist September/October 2019
page 47
around two and a half weeks to grow from seed, in London nearly 30 years ago at an anti-fur-trade rally. Now, adjusting their target to the throwaway fashion world, the artists say: “The environmental implications of low-cost garment production are shocking. Fast fashion is creating an environmental crisis with over 1 million tonnes of clothing thrown away in the UK each year. XR recognises that only transformative system change can begin to address the intersecting crises of biodiversity collapse, climate change, pollution, resource depletion and poor soil health.” This interconnectivity will feature in new works Ackroyd & Harvey are researching in their latest role as artists-in-residence at the Landmark Trust’s Llwyn Celyn estate. They are exploring the valley – so beautiful that it caught J.M.W. Turner’s eye – in the light of the present-day connections of ecological breakdown and the conflicts of the farming community, with initial thoughts about rewilding the area. Whatever pastures new they find, you can guarantee their latest project will be, like their other works, surreal, thoughtful and 100% green. www.ackroydandharvey.com www.theashproject.org.uk Gary Cook is an artist. www.cookthepainter.com Issue 316 Resurgence & Ecologist 45

Page Text

View plaintext

Above: Ash to Ash, installed at White Horse Country Park © Ackroyd & Harvey. Photograph © Manuel Vason

Top right: Beuys’ Acorns 2007 - ongoing © Ackroyd & Harvey

Bottom right: Beuys’ Acorns installed at The Lark Descending exhibition, St Martins Walk, Dorking 2018 © Ackroyd & Harvey work, and has driven them on to produce many award-winning and iconic ‘living’ pieces, including the striking History Trees, a series of 10 mature trees holding huge engraved rings at the entrances to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. Other memorable and thought-provoking commissions include largescale artworks built into the David Attenborough Building at Cambridge University. An open-ended project called Beuys’ Acorns began in 2007 when the artists germinated hundreds of acorns collected from influential German artist Joseph Beuys’ seminal artwork 7000 Oaks. The young trees will soon create centrepieces for much-needed conversations and interactions that Ackroyd & Harvey are planning at venues around the UK.

But it is their trademark grass seedling works that continue to intrigue them and that they return to time and again. “The opportunity to regrow the coats for an action at Fashion Week was irresistible,” they admit. They first showed the living artworks, which take

44 Resurgence & Ecologist

September/October 2019

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content