Bristol Open Doors’ socially distanced walking tours in September

If the streets could talk

Some of Bristol’s remarkable stories that were once lost to history will be brought back to life this September as Bristol Open Doors returns with a decidedly outdoor twist to its much-adored annual festival

Bristol Open Doors festival is a highlight in the city’s jampacked calendar, with crowds from far and wide flocking to explore buildings and attractions that are not usually open to the public. In these unprecedented times, however, we were prepared to add the festival to the list of events that the pandemic stole from us this year. Or we were until the team of brilliantly creative organisers designed three specifically curated walking tours to celebrate the past, present and future of the city and bring people back together – safely – for another year of the festival.

Running from 11-13 September, Bristol Open Doors is set to see visitors explore the hidden gems of the city’s most trodden paths and, with Bristol’s resident historians, poets and producers guiding them through, walkers will journey through time and space to uncover some forgotten truths.

The three tours, 60-90 minutes long and titled Vibrant Bristol, Hidden Harbour and Temple Tales, will let groups of 30 walkers loose on the city streets, with visitors able to view local buildings and spaces –spectacular inside and outside – and uncover secrets that even Bristol’s biggest fans wouldn’t know.

Starting at The Architecture Centre, each tour highlights a different aspect that has shaped the Bristol we know today – bringing in some of the city’s most prominent voices to add in facts that might have been glossed over in previous renditions of the tales.

Across the three days of the event, visitors are invited to download an app for their selected slot to experience an immersive guided tour of the city. Their smartphone, headphones and the power of geo-locations will guide them through a mesmerising journey of lost stories and longburied facts.

• Tickets cost £10 for adults and £5 for children; smartphone and headphones required. Safety is paramount, with tours capped at 30 people and social distancing strictly enforced; bristolopendoors.org.uk

Journey through time and space during Bristol Open Doors

Historic Bristol

In Historic Bristol: Through Time and Temple, the area we now know as Temple Quarter is opened up and taken apart. Exploring the surrounding parish and its roots with the clandestine Knights Templar, this tour looks at what was once a seat of power for the city. Bristol Open Doors asks just where that power sits today – as well as who was usurped along the way.

Vibrant Bristol

Vibrant Bristol: Street Art and the Painted City will explore the city’s artwork and delve in to the role that street art plays in Bristol’s identity –narrated by Upfest’s Stephen Hayles.

Listeners will uncover the stories behind the artwork, learn more about the city’s culture and remember the artists that put Bristol on the map.

Uncover forgotten tales and hidden truths Learn about the city’s colour and history from resident historians, poets and producers

Hidden Bristol

Hidden Harbour: Stories of a Radical City is curated by city poet Vanessa Kisuule and journeys through 1,000 years of history, leading up to the 2020 moment that saw the statue of Edward Colston plunged into the harbour.

Hear the stories, featuring No. 10 Guinea Street, hidden caves and M-Shed docks, of the people who built the harbour, those who worked there and those who live there now.

STATE OF THE ART

The Palm Temple, permanent installation, University of Bristol

The Palm Temple is a newly arrived Luke Jerram artwork, originally commissioned by Sky Arts in Italy, donated by the installation artist to the University of Bristol. Now on display outside the Chemistry Department, it’s free for the public to visit. Luke was approached back in September 2019 by production company 3D Produzioni in Milan about making an artwork – at least five metres in height and fabricated quickly for a temporary presentation – to celebrate the 600th commission was based on a spiralling lamella dome structure. This dome is cut in half and the two halves placed in parallel, like two palms of each hand coming together in prayer, and while Florence

anniversary of Brunelleschi’s dome of Florence Cathedral. The final Cathedral is a temple for contemplating God, this new artwork is designed for contemplating nature. Suspended in the apex of the dome is an ‘extinction bell’ which tolls once, 150-200 times a day, at random intervals, indicating the number of species lost worldwide every 24 hours according to a 2007 UN Environmental Programme. The aim is to raise awareness of biodiversity loss by making audible events which are invisible to us, but occurring across the world in multiple habitats.

• lukejerram.com

The Grade-II listed Soapworks building in Old Market

Centre of Gravity, Soapworks, 2 October – 1 November The former home of Gardiner Haskins, the Grade-II listed Soapworks, is set to host the work of more than 60 contemporary artists, in a show of support for Bristol’s creative community. The collaboration with property developer First Base will feature work which navigates the challenges posed by our new reality in a programme of visual arts, performance, talks and events. Expect established contemporary artists including Jo Lathwood, BEEF, Andrew Mania and Annabel Other, as well as emerging artists Caraboo Projects, Rising Arts Agency and Latch. The exhibition, creating a network of support for artists, collectives, producers and curators, comes at a time when many artists are struggling to find opportunities to showcase their work. It is designed to ensure visitors can keep to distancing guidelines and feel safe while enjoying the art.

• centreofgravity.uk

Elaine Shaw, online and ongoing

Bristol artist Elaine Shaw presents a new collection of limited edition prints of Bristol scenes. The gorgeous array of 11 giclee prints includes a sequence of Clifton Suspension Bridge painted at different times of day and season. The central focus of Elaine's work is how light plays on emotions and dynamics to a scene. Her unique style is much sought after Bristol scenes to life. Elaine has exhibited in many galleries here and abroad and has had several sell-out solo shows of her landscape, figurative and abstract work. She accepts bespoke commissions.

• elaineshawart.com

Bridge at Sunsetby Elaine Shaw for the distinctive way it brings landscapes giving different energies,

Paul Lewis: Painting From The Edge, Clifton Contemporary Art, 12 September – 10 October

This autumn, Clifton Contemporary Art is featuring the en plein air coastal paintings of internationally renowned artist Paul Lewin. Bringing the far South West to vivid life, over the years Paul has forged an intensely personal relationship with this restless landscape, evoking its atmospheres and elemental changes with a unique fluency. Each work places you in a moment, on a cliff top, or surveying broken, statuesque headlands as light and shade play across the water; not simply because Paul is a highly skilled painter, but because he was there, living and sensing the ragged edge between land and sea. Complementing Paul’s work will be a selection of paintings by gallery artists Neil Pinkett, Andrew Bird, Robert Jones and Sarah Brown.

• cliftoncontemporaryart.co.uk

St Agnes Beacon from Gullyn Rock,

Portreath, by Paul Lewin

Emergence 2020, Rainmaker Gallery, until 26 September

Esme at the Kitchen Tableby Chantal Joffe © Chantal Joffe/Victoria Miro

Chantal Joffe: For Esme – With Love and Squalor, Arnolfini, 3 September – 22 November

An exclusive new exhibition from one of Britain’s foremost painters, known for her intimate portrayal of women captured within rich layers of paint. Her work feels ever more timely and poignant in its ability to portray the ‘fragility of life’, and this show explores the intimate act of painting and portraiture. Taking its name from J.D. Salinger’s short story For Esme – With Love and Squalor (1950) in which time hangs as heavy as the protagonist’s ‘enormous-faced chronographic-looking wristwatch’, the exhibition captures the changing faces across the years of Chantal and her daughter Esme, moving between mother and daughter, love and squalor, and the act of care and being cared for. Including new works produced during lockdown. • arnolfini.org.uk This show marks the re-emergence of our communities from the confines inflicted on the world by the Covid-19 virus. The works selected for this exhibition reference healing, ceremony, meditation, nature and resilience by eight artists from tribes across the USA. This group show introduces organic works on paper by Monty Little (Diné) Juliaby Cara Romero and includes ledger drawings by Chris Pappan (Osage, Kanza and Sioux); minimalistic oil pastel drawings by Potawatomi artist Jason Wesaw; potent photographic portraits by Chemehuevi artist Cara Romero; contemplative acrylic paintings by Marla Allison from Laguna Pueblo; dynamic works by Osage painter Yatika Starr Fields; meditative serigraphs by Northern Cheyenne artist Jordan Ann Craig; and a touching portrait of tribal elder ‘Edna’ by Luanne Redeye (Seneca).

• rainmakerart.co.uk

Sound of Taransay, Harris,

by Zanna Wilson

Ebb and Flow, Lime Tree Gallery, 17 September – 10 October

Lime Tree Gallery welcomes back long-time favourite Zanna Wilson. Born to Scottish parents in Hampshire, Zanna grew up in that area but returned to her spiritual home when she attended Edinburgh University. After formal training at Leith School of Art, she settled in Perthshire. Her work is vigorous and bold, often capturing the raw beauty and drama of the Highlands and islands and their rapidly changing weather. “Currently my inspiration has derived from all my many trips exploring coastlines, especially on the West Coast of Scotland, the Outer Hebrides, the Isle of Tiree and the North Coast,” she says. “These are all magnificently rugged and brutal landscapes where weather dominates life and I find it so exhilarating.” This solo exhibition covers a wide range of landscapes and seascapes, in various mediums. Above all it is painterly, in an immensely powerful way.

Brilliant shades of Europe

Bristol’s oldest art gallery has thrown off the covers from works by some of the world’s most famous artists for the public to view once again, starting with Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and the artists of St Ives

The city’s first art gallery, the Royal West of England Academy, reopened to the public via an online booking system last month with an extension of its major exhibition on Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and the artists of St Ives. The self-supporting independent charity joined many other arts organisations in taking the difficult decision to close to the public in March, just days after opening the show, which includes the work of Barbara Hepworth, Sandra Blow, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon, Janet Leach, Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, John Wells, Karl Weschke and more.

Director Alison Bevan and the team spent the new-found down time productively, finding ways to continue inspire people with art and creativity online, utilising emergency Arts Council England funding to offer free zoom courses from the Drawing School programme and exhibition videos providing insight into and background for artists and their works. They even managed to pull off the much-anticipated Secret Postcard Auction virtually, raising £107,000.

“Despite these successes, with less than 1.5% of our costs covered from the public purse and negligible reserves, our financial situation is still precarious and the future of the RWA in jeopardy,” says Alison. “Our £3.8m Light and Inspiration capital project, planned for 2021, is imperative in securing the RWA’s financial future, transforming its business sustainability and how it attracts audiences. Covid-19 has underlined just how essential this project is.”

Dependent on income from ticket sales, workshops and other activities – at least £850,000 must be raised each year just to maintain its beautiful building – the team has been busy thinking of ways to make the galleries safer, ensure an improved museum visit and make social distancing easier. They’ve just set up a Smartify experience whereby visitors can download an app (@_smartify) before attending the gallery, then as they wander its chambers, whenever they hold their smartphone up to an artwork the app will recognise the image and they can read about it on their phone. Not only does this new feature help avoid the usual jostling among other visitors to read artwork labels, but it allows visitors to save their favourite artworks on the app, and go back and look at them after leaving the gallery.

Now mounted in the gallery, ‘Inspirational Journeys’ comes courtesy of a partnership with the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust to present the first and only South West showing of the new major exhibition based on the 20th-century British artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s travels in Europe. The timely theme of the show is a positive relationship with Europe and the inspiration found through travel and cultural exchange. Scottish-born painter, printmaker and brilliant colourist Barns-Graham was a prominent member of the St Ives group from 1940 when she moved to Cornwall. She divided her time between St Ives and St Andrews following a consistent artistic vision throughout her 65-year career until her death in 2004.

Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Orkney and Lanzarote feature, revealing how these places provided a significant impact on her wider practice and led to new perspectives, themes and stylistic changes in her work.

“This show looks at Willie’s regular trips into Europe, sometimes specifically to work, but more often for holidays,” says its curator, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust director Rob Airey. “However, as she worked almost daily, every new experience and place would feature in new work made at the time and back in her studio. The exhibition highlights the importance that travel had for her and is reflected both in the detailed figurative depictions of specific landscapes and colourful abstract paintings.” ➲

Glacier Knot, 1978, by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham,

Black Silence I, Maguez (Yellow), 1990, by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham,