Lambeth Wilds was an Arts Council England and National Lottery Heritage funded project facilitated and undertaken by artist Katie Spragg at the Garden Museum in Lambeth, London throughout 2019.
Beginning with a research residency at the museum and with community engagement at its core, the project culminated in a site-specific artwork now permanently installed in the museum. Lambeth Wilds aspires to celebrate and make visible both wild plants and communities local to the museum that may be overlooked or hidden within our wider society.
The resulting artwork; a large-scale installation of porcelain plants growing from concrete slabs, their roots revealed beneath, draws upon objects in the museum collection, explorations of the local area and stories and memories gathered from those that took part in the project. Participants included Lambeth Young Carers, Clay for Dementia group, members of local community groups and visitors to the museum.
A group of young people from Lambeth Young Carers came to the Garden Museum for six days of workshops as part of the project. They looked at objects in the museum collection, searched the local area for wild plants; drawing and photographing those that they found and learnt clay modelling and animating techniques. The young people brought this research together into a series of stop-frame clay animations and spoken word pieces (created with the guidance of spoken word artist Eliza Legzdina) that considered connections been wild plants and being a young carer.
The young people’s drawings, models and completed animations were exhibited alongside some of Katie’s research for the site-specific installation as part of London Craft Week in May 2019. Visitors were also invited to have a go themselves; joining Katie for guided nature walks and creating clay tiles by pressing wild plants found growing near the museum into clay; contributing to a three-dimensional, collaborative nature diary that evolved and grew over the two days.
Katie has produced a book to celebrate and share the research and stories gathered during the Lambeth Wilds project - you can order a copy here.
Lambeth Wilds
2019
Porcelain, Concrete, Wood, Aluminium
500 x 210 x 130 H cm
The Glasshouse, 2017
Porcelain, Glass, Wood, Steel, Aluminum, Brass
The Glasshouse explores the divergence between the way we cultivate and curate nature, and how nature has become resilient against this, pervading beyond human ordering. This work was made as a commission for the British Ceramics Biennial at the Old Spode Factory, Stoke-on-Trent.
This piece is directly inspired by the Spode factory site; from the textured glass windows to the porcelain plants growing inside, that can all either be found growing onsite or featured in historic Spode patterns.
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The Glasshouse is currently on display at my solo show Katie Spragg: Ceramics at Blackwell, the Arts and Crafts House in Bowness-on-Windermere. Until 10th May 2018.
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Further text taken from the accompanying booklet presented with the work:
When I visited the former Spode Factory for the British Ceramic Biennial in 2015 I was struck by two things; the industrial charm of the building and the nature that had moved in since the industry had moved out.
In 2008 Spode ceased production, after 232 years. Workspaces, tools, machinery and the building were all abandoned. Yet life did not completely cease at the Spode site. Plants that are often considered weeds, thrive where humans are or have been and there is a diverse population around the factory. Dandelions, grasses, plantains and clover grow from cracks in the pavement, sow thistles sprout inside on high window ledges, buddleia plants take up residence in cracks in the walls, brambles wind their way through empty atriums of broken plates and ferns flourish on damp walls.These plants growing in the face of adversity can be seen as a sign of hope; symbols of resilience and a kind of resistance.
In the words of nature writer Richard Mabey: “Weeds - give something back. They green over the dereliction we have created.They move into replace more sensitive plants we have endangered.Their willingness to grow in even the most hostile environments - a bombed city, crack in the wall - means that they insinuate the idea of wild nature into places otherwise quite shorn of it.”
These plants have regenerated the site in their own way, while the city of Stoke-on-Trent is currently undergoing its own regeneration.
Nature is deep rooted in Spode’s history; visiting their archive of historic pattern books currently held in Stoke’s City Central Library you will find numerous designs featuring plants and flowers, sometimes decorative and stylised, sometimes scientific - illustrations copied from early botanical magazines. Some of these plants are exotic, echoing the trend for plant hunting and importing foreign species at the time of Spode’s heyday – plants that may have now become naturalised in Britain, some are extremely commonplace, even weedy grasses and clovers are given prominence in the centre of dinner plates.
‘The Glasshouse’ is a record and celebration of Spode’s nature, historically in its designs and now in the plants that have made the factory site their home.
Second Image by Joel Fields
Dewy Vista, 2017, Porcelain, Glass, Wood
Long Pond Vista, 2017, Porcelain, Glass, Wood
Welsh Poppy Hamstone, 2017, Porcelain, Stone
Wall-nook Hamstone, 2017, Porcelain, Stone
Corner Hamstone, 2017, Porcelain, Stone
In May 2017 I spent a week at Forde Abbey on an artist’s residency; exploring, thinking, drawing and observing. I then created new works in clay, glass, stone and wood inspired by my time at the abbey which were exhibited there in October 2017.
During the residency I became really interested in the confluence and contrast between the curated nature of the Forde Abbey gardens; the lumpy topiary yew trees, mowed lawns and the shapely ponds alongside the areas left to be ‘wild’; untamed areas free to grow bracken, bramble and dock leaves and areas of meadow grass as well as the welsh poppies, ferns, succulents and clovers that grow from the stone of the building on their own accord. It was these wild areas that inspired the five new works I created.
I was joined on the residency by artist Kaori Tatebayashi. This residency was part of a wider project Landscape of Objects, curated by Flow Gallery and supported by Somerset Artworks.
Wall-nook Hamstone and Corner Hamstone are currently available from The New Craftsmen, 34 North Row, Mayfair, London W1K 6DG.
Long Pond Vista and Dewy Meadow Vista are available directly through me. Please get in touch for details.
Meadow, 2017
Porcelain, Oak, Glass, Plastic, LEDs, switch
Hedgerow, 2017
Porcelain, Oak, Glass, Plastic, LEDs, switch
Forest, 2017
Porcelain, Oak, Glass, Plastic, LEDs, switch
A series of three pieces created for the Craft Council’s Collect show, 2017 that continue my exploration of ways of immersing the viewer in a moment. Each piece represents a different natural landscape; hedgerow, forest and meadow, the scenes are inspired by my observations and experiences whilst on a residency at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in September 2016.
I have worked in collaboration with woodworker Geoffrey Hagger to create the boxes that encase the porcelain scenes. Each piece is lit to give it its own atmosphere, suggesting late evening, early morning and dappled sun coming through the trees.
Hedgerow was purchased by the Victoria & Albert Museum for their permanent collection in February 2017.
Meadow is still available.
Contact me for details.
Daydream, 2016
Porcelain, Oak, Brass, Plastic, Light.
"Enclosed spaces shelter daydreaming..."
Bachelard, The Poetics of Space.
A meadow enclosed in a box. Peer through the peephole to be transported into this world. A sublime, fantasised view of nature.
Fumed Oak 'Meadow Enclosure' made by Geoffrey Hagger.
Victorian Legacy: Japanese Knotweed, 2017
Porcelain, glass, fumed oak
Victorian Legacy: Himalayan Balsam, 2017
Porcelain, glass, fumed oak
The Victorians imported many exotic plants for decorative purposes, a number of these have now become considered weeds and are often invasive or problematic. I am interested in the classification of plants as weeds depending on cultural or locational factors. The glass dome, a Victorian method of display, is used here to consider these relationships of classification. Under the domes, otherwise idyllic British hedgerows are interrupted by these Victorian-imported invaders.
Victorian Legacy: Himalayan Balsam is available, contact info@thecynthiacorbettgallery.com for enquiries.
The Wilds of 5 Lely Court, 2016
Stop-frame animation, 1:18
In the Meadow, 2016
Stop-frame animation, 2:25
Wildness, 2016
Concrete, Porcelain, dimensions variable.
Weeds may act as metaphors in a number of ways; they highlight how we categorise things as desirable or undesirable depending on social and cultural factors and also as a representation of the resilience of nature, despite us pushing it to the margins of our created environments.
This site specific installation adds a new life to an otherwise dead space under the stairs.
Turfs, 2016/2017 | Meadows, 2016
Porcelain, various dimensions.
Some of the pieces shown here as well as commissions available. Please get in touch.
Blooms, 2016
Concrete, Porcelain, Dimensions variable.
While Away, 2016
Digital Film Projection, Oak, Cotton and Brass Chair, Wood and Paper Screen, Dimensions variable.
The viewer is invited to sit down, lean back and take a moment out of the busyness of everyday life. The looped film and soundtrack, recorded locally in Hyde Park, hope to recreate the archetypal feeling of lying back in the grass and whiling away hours without noticing time passing.
Chair designed and made in collaboration with Geoffrey Hagger.
Sketches / Studies / Diagrams, 2016
Watercolour, India Ink on Paper
Dinner at Spragg's, 2015
Digital Film featuring constructed ceramic objects put to use for the first time, 3:11
The Travelling Salesman's Plate, 2014
Slip-cast Earthenware with back-painted vitreous slips and enamel decoration, 80 x 25 x 6 cm.
