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| RED EARTH |
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GEOGRAPH 2005
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Performance . Ritual . Alchemy
RED EARTH is an artist-led environmental arts group creating experimental outdoor site-specific installations and performances in the landscape. Editors' note: See also the piece on RED EARTH in Total Art Journal.
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| Artistic Director/s
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Caitlin Easterby and Simon Pascoe
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| Vision
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RED EARTH projects are physical speculations on the power and energy of elemental processes, investigations into matter and the phenomena of the natural world; identifying the connections between art, philosophy, history, science and nature.
They are often experiments in ritualised space, combining sculpture installation with performed activation and involving a combination of sound, video, light; fire, water, earth and pyrotechnics.
RED EARTH projects are cross-cultural, cross-artform interdisciplinary collaborations between artists and non-arts professionals: land managers, architects, farmers, archaeologists, historians, geologists, ecologists, astronomers, animals and communities.
They are concerned with process, experimentation and exploration, often entailing extended periods of research and development.
RED EARTH has since 1989 presented work in Britain, Japan, Java, Mongolia and Europe in collaboration with artists from those countries: international interface redrawing cultural boundaries through interaction between diverging practices.
Projects have included: Live performance/installation activation
Site-specific sculpture installations
Public art/environmental sculpture commissions
Workshop residencies
Participatory arts
Collaborations with non-arts professionals
Outreach
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Productions and Projects
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CHALK
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2011
Installation, performance, and experiential walks on the South Downs
Between April and October 2011 RED EARTH explored the archaeology and ecology of the South Downs creating site-specific installations, performance journeys and experiential walks across two stunning landscapes: Harting Down (Chichester) and Wolstonbury Hill (Brighton). How do we really get to know a place? We can drive to it; take a bus, walk, cycle, ride or run. But how would it feel to travel through layers of geological and archaeological time, to feel and taste the ecology of the land, uncover its hidden worlds through sound and performance? What would it feel like to be truly immersed in the landscape? RED EARTH invited people to become collaborators with the land: walking it, navigating it, building, singing and performing it, leading to new encounters with the natural world and the forces that shape it.
photo: Paul Winter
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CHALK
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Long Shore Drift
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2007
Long Shore Drift draws together past, present and future landscapes to illuminate the natural forces at work along the Suffolk coast, highlighting the rapid environmental transformation predicted in the next fifty years.
Long Shore Drift is a response to the immediate and historical issue of land loss through geological transition and sea flooding, and the potential for the ecological restoration of an endangered habitat.
Working in partnership with The National Trust, Red Earth will create a cycle of site-specific installations, performance events and specialist walks interpreting the environmental changes taking place at Dunwich.
The public were invited to explore the ecology, archaeology, geology and future of the Suffolk coast through direct creative participation: greenwood installation across the heathland (April - Sept) and live performance at the water’s edge (last weekends in July and September).
Long Shore Drift is part of a body of work exploring coastal transformation and the effects of climate change, including Geograph (2005).
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Long Shore Drift
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ENCLOSURE
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2007
On 23 September, the Autumn Equinox, RED EARTH will create ENCLOSURE, a journey across Hambledon Hill, the chalk massif rising above the Dorset landscape. The performance will involve installation, sound, fire and ritual.
Beneath the well-preserved Iron Age earthworks lie the vast remains of the largest neolithic enclosure in Europe, established over five thousand years ago. ENCLOSURE will open a corridor between our ancestors and ourselves, reawakening Hambledon Hill as a space for meeting, celebration and ritual.
Created in collaboration with local musicians, performers and volunteers working with artists including Japanese butoh performer Atsushi Takenouchi, ENCLOSURE is informed by recent archaeological insights into neolithic ceremony and ritual and by the excavations of Hambledon Hill by R. J. Mercer. Image above is of the audience following Atsushi Takenouchi towards the 'field of stars.' photo: Roy Riley
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ENCLOSURE
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BOUNDARY
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2007
Jeskyns is the name of a new landscape being created by the Forestry Commission on the edge of Cobham village, Kent. Red Earth worked with students from Meopham and Thamesview secondary schools to create a performance event, BOUNDARY celebrating the new landscape and the beginning of a new relationship between local communities and the wildlife that will be encouraged to return to the land. The event unveiled a new sculpture installation by Walter Bailey.
A ceremonial procession created and performed by artists and students across open land involved music, performance and the burying of two time capsules containing artifacts symbolic of students’ lives in the 21st century. BOUNDARY marked and amplified the future promise Jeskyns holds for local people, instilling in those involved a sense of ownership, responsibility and respect for their landscape.
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GEOGRAPH: Trace, Vanishing Point
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2005
GEOGRAPH was a 6-month site-specific project exploring the nature of Birling Gap.
GEOGRAPH: Trace |
GEOGRAPH symbolised the geological tension between earth and sea, and the geological erosion of the chalk cliffs of the South Downs. TRACE
In May, over fifty participants created a 200 metre long erosion line of stone and other beach materials. Painter Sax Impey drew a series of chalk and water screens with images taken from microscopic images of the flint and chalk geology. Participants were led on a ritual chalk water offering to the low tide, blowing conch shells and ringing bells. Simultaneously, on the shoreline of Parangtritis beach in South-East Java, performance artist and dancer Parmin Ras was performing another water ritual, respectfully remembering the Asian Tsunami.
VANISHING POINT
At Bailey's Hill, Vanishing Point was the site-specific installation designed by Caitlin Easterby and Simon Pascoe. The sculpture was woven green sycamore in the shape of two interlocking curving waves, in-filled with wattle from hazel and willow. The materials echoed prehistoric building methods, and the sculpture was sited near to a burial ground.
GEOGRAPH: Vanishing Point |
For the closing ceremony in late September, Parmin Ras travelled to Birling Gap, and with Easterby and Pascoe, Impey, musician Ansuman Biswas and performer David Statham performed a purification ritual at the VANISHING POINT installation.
The audience was invited to walk through the sculpture, as a gateway between the visible and invisible, and down through the valley with a series of white flags marking the future erosion of the chalk cliffs. At Birling Gap beach, the water line was lit with fire before the closing water ceremony.
Rory Mortimore, Professor of Geology from the University of Brighton, advised on the area's geological formations. GEOGRAPH and the work of RED EARTH is reviewed by Oliver Lowenstein on greenmuseum.org Funders: Arts Council England, National Trust, Made in Brighton, Wealdon District Council Photographs: Caitlin Easterby and Charlotte McPherson
GEOGRAPH: Vanishing Point |
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RED EARTH's rituals
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2001 - 2002
Convergence
installation, performance/ritual
Brighton Festival
Funded by ZAP Productions, SEA
Vessel
a ship on water created from greenwood and bamboo activated by sound, fire and pyrotechnics commissioned by Birmingham City Council to end the Spirit Festival, Cannon Hill Park
Egg
improvised performance/ritual in collaboration with ceramicist Andy Glass
Funded by Bracknell Festival
Island
performance/ritual for Ancient Futures at Coed Hills Artspace, South Wales
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Transmutation, Beacon, Flux & Dark Matter
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1998 - 2001
Transmutation 1998
2 site-specific installations [gateways] commissioned by Les Platiqueurs for Viva Cite Festival, Sotteville, France, funded by Viva Cite, Interreg
Beacon 1999
12m fire tower activation. Canteleu, France, funded by Canteleu Town Council
Dark Matter 1999
installation performance [visual/sound/video/performance]. Brighton and Viva Cite Festivals, funded by SEA, Viva Cite, Interreg, Visiting Arts
Flux 2001
installation/performance - European co-commission, funded by Zap, UZ, Viva Cite, Amiens
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RED EARTH's rituals
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1996 - 1997
The Field 1996
research and development project investigating a time-based land art project in collaboration with Arc [Birmingham] and Common Ground, funded by ACE New Collaborations Scheme
Water Mark 1997
celebrating the redevelopment of the Winterbourne River in Lewes, funded by RORE
Meeting Ground 1997
time-based installation on Brighton Beach, funded by RORE, SEA
Fire Sounding 1997
ritual/performance collaboration with Suprapto Suryodamo, funded by Sharing Time
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More About
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Other works
2007
KEEP
KEEP
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An installation at Hadleigh Castle above the Thames Estuary southwest of Southend, KEEP took the form of a fragile tower. The twisting form of green wood reflected the transitory destiny of Hadleigh Castle, a mediaeval structure collapsing under the forces of erosion and the unstable geology of the landscape.
KEEP was a commission by the Greenwich and Docklands Festival.
2005
HOME
Site-specific installation and residency at Woodsmill Nature Reserve, Sussex
Jalan (Journey)
Site-specific installation/performance: activation of Trafalgar Square, London
with Javanese performer Parmin Ras
CIRCLE
Site-specific activation in Bath city centre
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