Bell House, a charity for wider learning, is taking part in Dulwich Festival this May with a Sculpture Park in the gardens with 11 artists and 3 dancers exhibiting.
Each sculpture will find a fresh context in the Bell House garden, chiming or contrasting with the environment to create new atmospheres and unfolding narratives. Some of the artist’s have made new works in response to the architecture and history of the house.
The Collectors, a dance trio interested in archives and collating resources from unique spaces, are working on a piece titled “34 Pictures”. The pictures have been collected from the Bell House archives to grow a meandering durational dance performance. The group explain how they use dance to ‘create moving sculptures, dynamic pathways and at times bizarreness across the landscape of the Bell House grounds’.
Likewise Isobel Finlay, a Camberwell art graduate interested in traditional processes and hand-craft, is working on a piece inspired by the hexagonal Georgian windows at the front of the house.
Other exhibiting artists include sculpting duo Dominic McHenry and Jim Shepherd, or BASK, who work with geometric carved wood encased in forged metal; Augustus Stickland, trained carpenter and another Camberwell graduate, presents notched and pared monoliths; Ikra Arshad experiments with playful perspex shapes to create ‘joyous spaces amongst nature and around public places’.
Rye Poets & composer David Clark Allen has developed a sound piece where a poem written by spoken-word trio Rye Poets is woven into a bee-buzzing soundscape; Jack Fawdry Tatham is working alongside Kennington apiary and social enterprise, Bee Urban, to build innovative solitary bee habitats; Annie Antoine and Kim Parker work with clay. Annie coils, pinches and carves. Kim throws and sculpts. Both take inspiration from natural forms such as poppy heads and the human body to create intimate and powerful ceramic pieces. Bell House has planning permission to build a pottery and so this celebration of ceramics signifies the start of a new path for the charity.
We also have some special works on loan by Ron Hitchins, a Chinese-Lithuanian artist-cum-flamenco dancer, born in 1926 in Hackney. Hitchen’s made fibreglass abstract sculptures inspired by the likes of Barbara Hepworth and Max Ernst. He is little known but his works, alongside his unusual house and furniture which is decoratively clad in his fibreglass tiles, are growing in notoriety.
We look forward to welcoming the public to the on site Bell House Sculpture Park! Artist Ikra Arshad sums up our aim for this show beautifully when she shared the following piece of writing with us- “Parks & outdoor spaces have been our saviour this past year… I was excited to be asked to take part in this show, mainly because right now, we need things that enhance our feelings of hope and joy more than ever.”
Opening/Performance Times:
Friday 7th: 11:30-7pm (The Collectors durational dance performances during the 14:30 - 15:30 and 17:30- 18:30 time slots)
Saturday 8th: 11:30-6pm
Sunday 9th- 11:30-6pm
Thursday 13th: 11:30-6pm
Friday 14th- 11:30-7pm (The Collectors durational dance performances during the 14:30 - 15:30 and 17:30- 18:30 time slots)
Saturday 15th- 11:30-6pm
Sunday 16th- 11:30-6pm
We will be operating in line with the latest government guidelines. The rule of 6 will apply. Pre-booking is advised and can be done through our website.
Walk-ups will be accommodated but the public may have to wait if we are busy! Track & Trace will be in operation.
