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Sustainable public art for Sunken Garden published their Delivery Report!2 years ago
Delivered 30 November 2021
Impact data and claims within this report are provided by the project creator and have not been independently verified by Spacehive.
Margate NOW & the Sunken Garden Society are joining forces to commission innovative, functional and sustainable public artworks for the Sunken Garden, a unique biodiverse outdoor space in Westbrook.
The Sunken Garden is the focal point of this year’s Margate NOW, an annual festival producing arts and culture for communities across Margate. This year is more important than ever to promote community action through our event as we bring people out from isolation. The sculptures will act as an invitation for our community to reflect and meditate on the past year. Nature-inspired, whimsical and fantastical, the artworks will help make our miniature Eden an even more enjoyable place to meet, meditate, socialise and play. We are working with outstanding artists - Nicolas Deshayes, Lindsey Mendick and Olu Ogunnaike - to design and create a gate for the Hermit’s Cave, a compost bin and a bench. So as well as being functional, the designs will grow out of our aspiration to bring people together again - combatting loneliness and celebrating the mental health benefits of time outside in nature.
What we'll deliver:
Why it's a great idea:
The Sunken Garden Society was formed to bring love and life back to the Sunken Garden, which had become abandoned and overgrown. The group of dedicated volunteers has been restoring this free outdoor space to make it more beautiful and welcoming not just to visitors, but also to bumblebees and wildlife. We're keen to welcome and train more volunteers as part of this sculpture garden project. This collaboration between two local organisations dedicated to nurturing creativity and nature provides a unique opportunity for the garden to be better equipped, to integrate art into its ecosystem and create new forms of interaction with visitors and users of the Garden. It further offers the artists a rare opportunity to bring function into their work and a unique permanent public setting for it to exist in. Key to the project is the creation of a sustainable and considerate dialogue between art and nature, and the continued provision of a welcoming and soothing refuge for everyone.
Steps to get it done:
PHOTOGRAPHY by Heather Tait " Margate NOW and Sunken Garden Society teams at the Sunken Garden" Information about the individual commissions: Dover-based artist Nicolas Deshayes will create an ornamental gate for the Hermit’s cave, inspired by organic motifs and cast in iron. Playful and gut-like, the gate will protect the mysterious Hermit's Cave, while serving as storage for the garden. Margate-based artist Lindsey Mendick will make a fantastical compost bin, which cannot contain what is happening within itself. All the juicy parts of decomposition, the parts that we are so desperate to hide as they remind us of our own demise, are on show. London-based artist Olu Ogunnaike will create a bench made of all the species of wood native to Kent. Their names and place of origin will be etched onto the metal frame. Significantly, the Sunken Garden is one of the rare places on the Margate coastline where trees are found.
Gallery
Journey
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Whoop, 40 people have pledged since fundraising began!
How will the money be spent?Target (inc. fees) £27,575
Costs Breakdown
This shows how money raised for the project will be spent. These costs have been confirmed by the project's Delivery Manager and verified.
Overfunding
This project is enabled for overfunding. If the project hits its funding goal before the end of the campaign period, any extra funds raised will be spent (in order of priority) on:
Target (inc. fees) £27,575
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VolunteerThrough art, music, performance and collective action, Margate NOW celebrates the best contemporary culture from our world-class creative community. This year, we continue our overarching motif of ‘NOW’, with a focus on the immediate themes of nature and ecology. A dynamic programme of visual culture featuring commissions in the public realm will animate the town, enlivening unusual spaces and inspiring audiences.
Margate NOW began in 2014 as Margate Festival, and has grown into an annual festival producing contemporary culture for diverse audiences in site-specific locations around Margate. Previous guest curators include People Dem Collective (2020), Russell Tovey (2019) and Sacha Craddock (2018).
The Sunken Garden is situated in Westbrook in Margate where it is a feature of the Royal Esplanade. Landscaped in the early 1930s during the years of the Depression, the garden survived the neglect of war and the partial eclipse of the popularity of seaside resorts. This much loved community space is set in the limestone chalk cliff of Westbrook Bay protected from sweeping winds and encircled by a terrace, and is one of the rare places on the Margate coastline where trees are found. Planting has changed radically from the lush bedding displays of the 1930s to the present arrangement of hardy coastal shrubs. Under the care of the Sunken Garden Society (SGS), a group of committed dedicated volunteers, since 2018, SGS is actively engaged with wildlife conservation, is an RHS affiliated society and was a recipient of the 2020 Bees Needs Champions Award.
Guest Curator for Margate NOW 2021 is Anna Colin, an independent curator, educator and researcher based in Deal, Kent. Alongside her freelance activities, which straddle the curatorial and the pedagogical and increasingly engage the natural environment and open spaces, she is training in horticulture and garden design, while completing a PhD in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham. Anna was a co-founder and director of Open School East, London/Margate (2013-20), associate curator at Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2014-20), and co-curator, with Lydia Yee, of British Art Show 8 (Leeds, Edinburgh, Norwich, Southampton) (2015-16).
Project Owner: Margate Festival CIC The Project Owner takes legal responsibility for receiving and spending the funds raised and ensuring the project is delivered.
Contractors: Nicolas Deshayes,Lindsey Mendick,Olu Oginnaike,Molly Pickle Design The team responsible for building or installing the project.
