10/09/14
Folkestone Triennial: Lookout
30 August – 2 November 2014
For the third edition of this bustling summer exhibition,
curator Lewis Biggs has invited a selection of internationally renowned and
local artists to produce 21 new art works in response to specific sites across
town. Indoors and out, they rejuvenate existing locations and create new
community spaces. From Baroque-style lighthouse-beach huts to camping bases
jutting out from the highest point of the tallest hotel in town; from the
soundtrack of a sobbing woman to a plexiglass and neon hop garden. This is a
festival where no stone has been left unturned.
Studio International went on a coastal tour and managed to speak
to a number of those involved, both artists and organisers.
To watch the video interviews, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/folkestone-triennial-lewis-biggs-alastair-upton-artists-interviews
Alastair Upton is Chief Executive of The Creative
Foundation, an independent visionary arts charity, seeking to rejuvenate
Folkestone through creative activity. As well as restoring more than 90
buildings in the Creative Quarter and building the Quarterhouse arts venue,
they are also the people behind the Triennial and its lasting legacy of
permanent art works around town. Upton speaks to us about the changes he has
seen in Folkestone, thanks to the Foundation, and about how community projects
and art works, such as the creation of Payers Park, leave their mark.
Lewis Biggs is this year’s Curator, invited to join
the Triennial after 11 years as Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the
Liverpool Biennial. He was also Director of Tate Liverpool from 1990-2000.
Biggs speaks to us about the challenges of working with “real life” and how he
sees his role as curator.
Fresh from his incredible journey with Nowhereisland,
Alex Hartley speaks to us from his lookout atop the Grand Burstin Hotel. With a
vigil being held for the duration of the Triennial, we were lucky enough to
experience the view on a wonderfully sunny day.
Jyll Bradley, a native of Folkestone, has returned to
the town to create a wonderful homage to the Kentish hop gardens with which she
grew up. Her work invites viewers to walk among the strings and green
plexiglass and neon poles and to enjoy three very different views across town.
Constructed on the site of the old gasworks, the circular form also makes
reference to the gasometer that once stood in this place.
Pablo Bronstein, whose Sketches for Regency Living
graced the walls of the ICA this summer, has brought to life a sculpture based
on the ideas of 18th century architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. A grey beach hut,
next to an empty container, with a non-functioning lighthouse extending above –
Bronstein explains to us why he hates beach huts and all things about them.
Emma Hart’s work is full of anxiety. Located in an
empty domestic space on Tontine Street, it fills the rooms with outlines of
glasses, remnants of a party, and video screens which scream out, both in
desolation and invitation. Hart feels under pressure but takes the time to talk
to us about how this manifests.
rootoftwo’s work also responds to anxiety, but by
measuring social media and people’s response to and production of fear on the
Internet. Five whithervanes, at
locations across town, spin and light up in different colours according to the
messages they are picking up. The artists explain to us how the system works
and how visitors – and even those across the globe – can interact and have an
impact on the whithervanes’ activity.
To watch all of the video interviews as one show, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/folkestone-triennial-lewis-biggs-alastair-upton-artists-interviews
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