TEND is an ongoing project that originated as a year-long research residency; as it continues we will be condensing ideas, exploring further locations and processes of collaboration. We are also currently developing a publication.
Trewidden Garden is an important example of the links between industrial expansion and horticultural research witnessed in the South West of England throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
TEND references both the tending of plants and the nurturing of an idea over a sustained period of time. The aim of the residency was to develop a specific understanding of the garden in relation to broader geographical, cultural and ecological thinking through a sustained period of residence. We have witnessed the porosity of its borders and encouraged the role of emergence and open encounters in the realisation of ideas. During a process of exploratory micro-projects, gardening and exchanges between visitors and staff we are also unraveling the contemporary role of the garden within the context of its industrial and horticultural heritage. Over the course of the residency the two sheds, that we sited in the garden, evolved to become studio, archival space and artwork. TEND has developed as a conversation between ourselves where collected works are situated in relation to each other to form new perspectives.
TEND has been supported by Arts Council England – SW, Trewidden Garden and the Bolitho Estate.
NEWS - Winter 08/ Spring 09
The old stable yard adjacent to the gardens have been renovated over the past 6 months and will soon be occupied by a diverse range of artists from the region. The 15 studios will make a welcome contribution to the arts infrastructure in West Penwith and should be a wonderful place to work. We have taken up Studio 2 as a collaborative work space.
We are continuing to develop work within the TEND project and will be showing as part of the 2009 Open Studios.
RANE [Research in Art Nature and Environment] based at University College Falmouth are funding a small publication about TEND which we will be distributing regionally and nationally. We are especially keen to develop links with Green Tourism where we might generate new perspectives on the landscape for the visitor and build new relationships with regional business and organisations. Our publication will be part of this enterprise.
Lode-ed Landscape – exposing the ‘currency’ of tin mining.
Trewidden – White Farmstead
Centuries have passed since individuals, groups and perhaps even families excavated tin ore from the ground that now sits within the boundaries of Trewidden garden. The residue of that activity - the discarded rock [pale porphyritic elvan, a granite with large crystalline structure and Killas, a sedimentary slate] - once lay in undisturbed, alternating horizontal layers punctuated by the narrow veins of tin ore.
Today we can wonder through what can only be described as a multiplicitous environment, created from a range of geological processes and time periods all exposed in one space. It is perhaps worth considering this when looking at the Burrows and Tree Fern Pit, these habitats or micro eco-systems that now support a host of insects, birds, exotic plants and weeds. I feel like I want to somehow disclose the delicate balance between stasis and disturbance, the symbiotic relationship between past and present, leisure and industry, mammal, invertebrate and flora.
The most common use of Cornish tin today [from stock piles and shipwrecks] is for jewellery, quite a shift from the vast industrial activity that supplied the world with the finest alloy base metal.
I am continuing my interest in the Bumblebee population and how the mine workings and use of spoil rocks for walling provide ideal habitats for them. I am working on a series of small sculptures that draw together the relationships between the tin industry as it is now and how it was in previous centuries. From the small medieval opencast hollows evident at Trewidden, to the massive expansion within Cornwall [of which the Bolitho family were integral] as the worlds principle supplier of tin to its gradual decline due to global competition. Having made a 1:1 scale bumblebee in wax I am working with St Justin jewellers from Long Rock near Penzance to cast a set of tin bumblebees. I will locate them in discrete parts of the garden, perhaps indicating current or previous bumblebee nests; shimmering echoes of human necessity, desire and ambition resonating with our evolving connectivity to nature. [DP]
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