Ackroyd & Harvey: Ash to Ash

Join us for this chance to hear first hand about this unique commission celebrating and commemorating one of our most common trees.

Saturday 8 September 2018, 2- 3pm

Quarterhouse, 49 Tontine St, Folkestone CT20 1BN

Ash to Ash by Ackroyd & Harvey is a major new environmental new artwork commissioned by The Ash Project responding to the loss of Ash trees across the globe. Whilst much is now understood about Ash dieback; managing trees through this crisis and the impact on the landscapes, biodiversity and our health remains poorly understood. The talk will look at the impact tree threats have on our landscape and how we might celebrate the Ash before it is too late.

“There is inevitable pathos in the loss of the ash. Rooted into both our landscape and psyche, mythologized as the World Tree by the Norsemen, that upheld the world of the gods, humanity and worms – the so-called “cosmic” tree is in deep trouble. As part of its strategy to resist infection, the tree’s defense mechanism produces epicormic growth – naturally occurring shoots which form along the main trunk and branches. The growth is a struggle for survival, the ailing tree’s final flourish. The tree appears to be arming itself with a coat of spears.” Ackroyd and Harvey

Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey (b. 1959/1959 England) are internationally acclaimed for creating multi-disciplinary works that intersect art, activism, architecture, biology, ecology and history. Referencing memory and time, nature and culture, urban political ecologies, anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation, their time-based practice reveals an intrinsic bias towards process and event.  Processes of germination, growth and decay (organic and inorganic), erosion and deposition, feature in artworks that often evolve through extended research in response to people and place, interfacing their profound interest in local ecologies and global environmental concerns with socio-political paradigms.