Crummock Water, Enerdale Water, Buttermere
Fibre Glass, water, fish, aquatic plants, 2008
These sculptural works are scaled down models of lakes from the Lake District national park, filled with water, fish and aquatic plants. Ennerdale Water, Crummock Water and Buttermere have been reduced in size to resemble garden ponds, but have been carefully constructed to depict the intricate edges of the real lakes describing all their inlets and promontories. The viewer was encouraged to linger in this constructed environment and contemplate the faux natural scene as in a garden.
The work sought to highlight the potential of gardens as a habitat for wildlife. There is estimated to be about 4000 sq km of garden in Britain whilst the largest National Park is the Lake District, which covers 2300 sq km.
In combining the domesticated, cultivated nature of the garden, with massive large-scale land formations created over thousands of years, these pieces represent the domestication and consumption of nature through tourism in such places as the Lake District. The work seeks to question our relationship to the natural world by combining two distinct areas within which we come into contact with nature, one supposedly man made and artificial, and the other seemingly more authentic and wild.
This project was made for and exhibited at “Cultivated Landscapes” at Bloc Projects, Sheffield. Click here for the press release, here for interview & here for reviews
