Category: Arts & Culture

From 7 September (until 4 October) visitors to Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village can experience Forest Listening, an audio visual installation by artist Liz K Miller. The installation, which will be sited in the Limnerslease woodland, brings together the sounds of a rainstorm recorded from beneath the forest floor with visualisations of these sounds, presented as a series of blueprints hanging from the trees.

A collaboration between Surrey Hills Arts and Watts Gallery Trust, Forest Listening explores our relationship with trees: can the simple act of listening reignite our interest in these fascinating and complex living beings? Can we re-learn their value and importance as the climate and ecology of the world break down?

During the summer of 2019, Liz K Miller recorded the sound of rain beneath the sandy forest floor at Blackheath Forest, also located in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. From this sonic data, the artist has created a visualisation of these sounds, showing the pitch and volume of the raindrops as they crash into the forest floor.

Forest Listening is the culmination of this project, through which the artist seeks to re-connect humans with our non-human companion species – the trees. As visitors wander through the woodland at Limnerslease they can listen to the sound file on the Smartify app or via surreyhillsarts.org. A series of cyanotype prints, visually interpreting the rainstorm, indicate listening zones within the woodland.

Commenting, Ellen Love, Community Programme Curator at Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village, said:
“The Limnerslease Woodland, which surrounds the home and studios of the founders of Watts Gallery, George and Mary Watts, acted as a source of inspiration to both artists. The couple named their house and the woodland Limnerslease because ‘Limner’ is the Old English word for artist — and ‘lease’ — to glean hope for the future so it is all the more fitting that artists, like Liz, exhibit work in the woodland.” –

Liz K Miller said:

“Limnerslease is a magical woodland. Its winding tracks amongst established undergrowth, leading into beautiful clearings, are perfect for installing Forest Listening. I hope the artwork will emerge like hidden gems from among the trees.”

For further information about the project and event:
https://www.surreyhillsarts.org/forest-listening-watts-gallery/

Amanda Loomes is making a short experimental documentary film as part of Surrey Unearthed, a project that is exploring the natural materials of the Surrey Hills landscape through art.

Amanda is using the sand quarries in East Surrey for her work which will examine the historic legacy of material extractions, consider the work that is being undertaken to make the sites into wildlife habitats and the long-term effect of continued extraction of sand.

Her film will also focuses on people and she will profile the workers today and in the past.

Take a look at a short clip of Amanda’s documentary so far, which shows the sand being extracted.

View here

For the past ten years, Amanda Loomes has created experimental documentary films preoccupied by people at work, focusing on the effort of people whose work goes unnoticed, or work that becomes erased or undone. Recent projects include Spiky Black, Chalkwell Park Rose Garden, 2017. Shoreham Sculpture Trail and The Mesh, Watermans Art Centre, 2017. Her project, Keepers, at the National Trust property at Lyme in 2016 examined gamekeepers, housekeepers, head keepers, timekeepers and their stories. Amanda was selected for the Jerwood Open Forest, Jerwood Space.

Discover more about Amanda and her work here; www.amandaloomes.net

Surrey Hills Arts are delighted to announce a grant awarded by Arts Council England of 67K for an exciting new project exploring the natural materials of the Surrey Hills landscape. This exciting project called ‘Surrey Unearthed’ will see ten selected artists create new work along the entire width of Surrey’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which covers a quarter of the county, engaging a wide range of people along the way.

Projects will include monolithic chalk symbols, giant structures formed of hay bales which slowly illuminate as dusk falls, an innovative ceramic installation and an art documentary exploring the process of sand extraction.

Surrey based artist Mary Branson will be exploring the processes of farming and the harvest tradition working with local young people and those who would not normally access the countryside. Mary who was Artist in Residence at the Houses of Parliament in 2014-2016, specialises in creating conceptual large scale installations, using sculpture, light and sound.

Mary comments; “I’ve been walking over Newlands corner since I was a child. I often come here for inspiration, or when dreaming up new works, so to be involved in a project for Surrey Unearthed in such a stunning setting is a real honour..”

There will be an exhibition at Leith Hill Place in July which will bring together the fascinating research and development of all the artists. There will also be opportunities for the public to get involved through a series of talks, workshops and community celebrations, which will coincide with 2018 being the 60th anniversary of the Surrey Hills designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

Surrey Hills Arts Programme Manager Ali Clarke says ‘Surrey Unearthed’ is such an exciting project. It will give people a greater insight into the outstanding Surrey Hills landscape and its unique geology. Our natural materials such as sand, chalk and clay have had many uses over time, have shaped local industry, art & craft and architecture and will now be used to create new work.’

For more information about the project visit www.surreyhillsarts.org