The Residents is a National Trust artists-in-residence programme curated by Inheritance Projects in partnership with major regional contemporary art galleries. Clumber Park in Sherwood Forest, in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary hosted the artist group Support Structure.
Support Structure are artist / architect Celine Condorelli and artist / curator Gavin Wade. The group see themselves as an architectural interface who create spaces that can be continuously reinvented by their users. Support Structure try to enable a space's users to reconsider their surroundings, aiming to be an impulse for future change. Their projects to date include: a narrated site map of the University of Essex annotated by the stories of the site, the establishment of Eastside Projects gallery space in Birmingham and a book, Support Structures (edited by Celine Condorelli) published by Sternberg Press in 2009.
As mentioned in the Domesday Book, Clumber Park was first a monastic property built in the Middle Ages. It later came to be a deer park, following its acquisition by the Holles Family in the 18th Century. Whilst a Gothic Chapel still stands, only an empty expanse of land reveals where the original house of Clumber was built. The absent building indicates the decline of the grand estate following two great fires and a period of debt for the frivolous owners that coincided with the First World War. It was once the stomping ground of Robin Hood and, comprising over 3,800 acres, Clumber was used to store Churchill's arsenal for trench digging and other training exercises during World War II. Contemporary Clumber is a rich historical landscape, parkland dotted with structures, impressive views, and public activities.
Whilst in residence at Clumber Park, Support Structure focused on the plan of the absent house, how the building was articulated and used until it was demolished. They are interested in the story of the demolished house and how the public’s imagination can be exercised through the absence of such a principal element on the property. Support Structure have also spent time investigating the unrealised proposals for other buildings around the world and at Clumber Park linked through a wilful narrative of social ambition, and presented a book of proposals for changes to the future conditions of Cumber Park on-site and at Nottingham Contemporary in February 2012.
inheritanceprojects.org
nottinghamcontemporary.org/event/support-structure-artists-talk-and-publication-launch
nationaltrust.org.uk/what-we-do/big-issues/art-and-heritage/
©Field Studies Ltd. 2012