Plus Saatchi Online presents The Festival’s Art Trail and Benson Trent’s Illusion returns
Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire 4th – 7th August 2011
Art Ping Pong comes to The Big Chill this year courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery which has commissioned four bespoke tables by some of the UK’s leading artists.The Gallery’s sister website, Saatchi Online, will present part of the Festival’s Night-time Art Trail, transforming the grounds of The Big Chill via a plotted route through the site’s woodland. Making a welcome return will be Benson Trent with Illusion 2.
Ron Arad is an artist, architect, designer and avid ping pong player, best known for his sculptural furniture and innovative work within the fields of architecture and design. Glasgow-based Jim Lambie was shortlisted for the 2005 Turner Prize and uses ordinary materials to create vibrant sculptural installations, working with brightly coloured vinyl, transforming the existing architecture. Richard Woods is internationally acclaimed forhis temporary makeovers, creating alternative realities for interiors, exteriors and everyday objects. Since theearly 1990s Gavin Turk has been making sculpture and installations that deal with issues of value,authenticity and identity. Following their appearance at The Big Chill this year, the tables will be auctioned inthe autumn with all proceeds going to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
As part of this year’s Art Trail, Saatchi Online presents seven emerging artists. Oliver Beer will show a film from his Resonance Project, an ongoing series of works that turns buildings into giant architectural instruments, using the human voice to force them to resound at their natural resonant frequencies. Suki Chan will present her film Interval II, which juxtaposes a cast-iron pier in Northwest England with a roundhouse in Southeast China, and follows the mesmerising swarms of migrating starlings.
Mimi Norrgren will perform two site-specific works testing the limits of her physical endurance. Katie Louise Surridge will create a large-scale sculpture out of found objects scavenged from the streets ofLondon. Elizabeth Jordan will present an immersive installation projection, creating a three-dimensional optical illusion that challenges a viewer’s capacity to perceive visually. Susie Olczak and Rachel Wilson will all be creating new immersive installations, playing with light, our spatial surroundings and optical illusion.Both projects have been curated by Rebecca Wilson, Associate Director, Saatchi Gallery, London.
Benson Trent’s installation, Illusion, proved a popular focal point within The Big Chill’s Art Trail at the 2010 festival. Many festival goers gathered amongst Illusion’s pulsating glow and its orbs on the side of the hill both as the sun set and rose over Eastnor Castle Deer Park. Trent makes a welcome return in 2011 with Illusion 2, an electronic light sculpture on a canvas of over 30 large balloons, this year with some of the balloons inflated with helium and suspended mid air. Designed as a large area to meditate, the light array creates a feeling of warmth and space in the area the size of a soccer pitch. Light effects are programmed to evoke a range of moods with soft, fading luminescence interspersed by glimmering, dancing lights. The Installation was inspired by images of the Yipeng Lantern Festival held yearly in Thailand. The festival features a spectacle of over 200,000 floating, candle-lit lanterns that rise up to a mile into the night sky.Locals believe that as the Sky Lantern rises, it takes away their troubles and brings good luck in the future.At night, Illusion 2 comes alive with light and music.
This year’s Art Trail will also feature an official trial of the large man-powered vehicle, the Mobile Picnic Pavilion. This experiment has been commissioned by The Big Chill and the Minister of Alternative Transport (MAT), Francis Thorburn. It is part of an ongoing research project that explores the potential for sustainable transport in preparation for the day that petrol runs out. For the past three years the Alternative Transport Network (ATN) has been developinga unique prototype engine for the future. They are calling this new movement in engineering “Hamster WheelTechnology”, which is said to have caused a revolution in the minds of those who have travelled with the ATN.
Francis Thorburn is a practicing fine artist currently working with performance and sculpture. Under the title of Minister of Alternative Transport he has been developing a series of processional performances, which use sculptural devices (vehicles) to head the procession. With the movement of the audience from one place to another it takes ona celebratory air. The procession and its tone are a ridiculous construction presenting a futile journey. He wishes to fascinate and capture the audiences’ attention with the absurd and the extravagant, through ritualised action and the epic machines.
Furthermore, The Big Chill is proud to offer Sketching The Fabric of the Human Body. With charcoal, paper and the luscious surroundings of Eastnor Castle Deer Park provided, an instructor will be on hand to give festival-goers amaster class in life drawing.
Now a fully fledged member of the Festival Republic family The Big Chill is poised to build further on the successesof 2010. Last year saw an international line-up of some of the biggest selling names in electronic, indie and pop music and 2011 sees another all-star cast taking to The Big Chill stages including an exclusive UK festival
appearance by Kanye West plus The Chemical Brothers and Rodrigo y Gabriela. The Big Chill takes place from 4th to 7th of August 2011 at Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Ledbury, Herefordshire.
