Sculpture at Wat Tyler

wat tyler sculpture at

Visions from a New Town

Edited and Photographed by Robert Bloomfield

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wat tyler

sculpture at

Edited and Photographed by Robert Bloomfield Design by Rich Smoke Published November 2008 This is an Aorta Publication Acknowledgements Sculpture at Wat Tyler is indebted to a great many people in Basildon and further afield who have given feely of their time, talents and experience to make this project possible. Steve Prewer and the team at Wat Tyler Country Park for accepting the challenge of creating a sculpture trail at Wat Tyler and for helping to make it a reality; Louisa Daynes from Essex County Council’s ‘After Hours’ initiative for organising the Artists in Schools programme; and the schools themselves: Chalvedon, De La Salle, Felmore Junior, Cherry Tree Primary and Barstable. Madelaine Murphy from De La Salle School and Mike McCall from Chalvedon School for their generous assistance with the educational ambitions of the project; Paul Brace and Roy Short from Basildon District Council and Sarah Mears from Essex County Council; Tony Beckwith, Vin Harrop, Mike Harrington, Anne Sorensen, Warren Chapman and Yuko Asamura for their time and advice, and Gary Houghton for generously allowing us to use his original research on the history of Wat Tyler Country Park.. Wat Tyler gratefully acknowledges the support of its funders The Big Lottery Fund, Essex County County Council and Cleanaway Pitsea Marshes Trust .

I especially want to thank Tim Balogun and Catherine McMahon for the arguments, debates and disputes of the last two years in which fire this modest publication was forged.

ISBN: 978-0-9560555-0-7.

Printed in the UK by Printech Europe Ltd. Text set in FS Albert All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalk system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Basildon District Council.

Starting point When the concept of the Basildon Sculpture Park at Wat Tyler Park was first presented to me, I immediately recognised the great opportunities and benefits that might stem from the development of a community-based art project of potentially national importance being developed within Basildon. A project that could enhance the district’s reputation as a centre of regional cultural significance and an interesting way of displaying art for the enjoyment of both residents and visitors in the truly contemporary environment of the park.

The idea of involving our young people in a series of workshops led by professional artists to develop initial design ideas was a fantastic opportunity for all concerned. The partnerships forged with local schools enabled young people to come into direct contact with professional artists for the first time, benefiting from their skills and experience. The involvement of the schools in the project also engendered a sense of ownership and continued interest in the Sculpture Park, which still persists today.

Local artists showing alongside nationally and internationally established sculptors enabled the sculpture park to be used as a local showcase of innovation, design skills and creativity. And the partnership between the artists, schools and the staff at Wat Tyler Country Park enabled the selection of the sites for the sculptures to be in keeping with the artist’s aspirations while complimenting their physical surroundings and enhancing the natural setting.

This project has brought together many different and diverse organisations, groups and individuals, and has resulted in a major community facility being delivered that adds to the already superb facilities Wat Tyler has to offer.

Anthony Hedley Cabinet Member for Leisure & Arts Basildon District Council

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“Basildon will become a City which people from all over the world will want to visit. It will be a place where all classes of community can meet freely together on equal terms and enjoy common cultural recreational facilities.”

Lewis Silkin, Minister of Town and Country Planning, September 1948.

“It’s a nice place, a good area, a bit rough in places” Chalvedon school pupil, June 2008

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An artistic perspective When I became Head of Arts at Basildon District Council I was raring to go in what I thought was a community in need of cultural and creative input. It’s fair to say that I was proved wrong. Basildon has a central theatre, a thriving Arts Trust, several museums, a number of talented artists, and had even funded a mini sculpture trail in the past. I quickly revised my preconceptions realising that here was a ‘new town’, receptive to new ideas.

My early perception of Basildon is an example of what I deem to be Basildon’s greatest problem from a national perspective - its image. Basildon does not have delusions of a grandeur, nor does it suffer from class issues. It is a New Town that benefits from open spaces, lots of trees, and speaking as a Londoner –fresh air! We found conversely that Basildon sees London in a somewhat Dickensian light – dank, dirty and a bit dangerous, as is apparent from some of the children’s comments in this book. I had just graduated from the Royal College of Art, an experience that opened up unimaginable creative horizons, and I’d decided I wanted to somehow ‘appropriate’ my experiences and artistic practice into the community if at all possible – merging innovative creativity within the institutions of mainstream education - and involving as many young people as possible. Wat Tyler Country Park was especially receptive to new horizons. It took me a while to come upon the place, and when I did it was a real revelation. Robert Bloomfield’s photography represented here will, I hope, give you a flavour of that revelation. It endeavours to create an ‘encounter’ with the park and its eclectic character of pillbox and pylons, marshland and modern art, so uniquely of our times.

With the idea of the sculpture park in place and with the full backing of the Countryside Services, funding from the Big Lottery, Essex County Council and the Cleanaway Pitsea Marshes Trust came rapidly. We were aware of the precedents – I’d spent my student days earning extra income by riding around on a quad bike cleaning up the Henry Moores in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Closer to hand, other ‘new towns’ had been there before us – Harlow led the way with a remarkable collection of sculpture from the 1950’s including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Elisabeth Frink and Helen Chadwick. And more recently Gunpowder Park in the nearby Lee Valley, who were enormously helpful with their time and advice in our own more modest project, has been significant in the development and recognition of public art in an environmental context.

Regarding the selection of artists, people kept asking me about site specificity. I question site specificity, it jars on me. I’m not as interested in that as I am interested in the pieces being interactively specific, as being thought-inspiringly specific. But the educational strand was enormously important– over and above the general aims of art education we wanted local schoolchildren to feel a sense of ownership of the sculptures. What mattered most was that the artists we selected were going to co-create with schoolchildren.

I genuinely feel honoured to have had the opportunity to lead on such an innovative project. It was a huge undertaking that required patience, commitment and support from many sectors of the local community.

Thank you to all those who, in the words of Frank Lloyd Wright, by their dedication, hard work and unremitting devotion made Sculpture at Wat Tyler happen. I hope you enjoy it.

Tim Balogun Artistic Director

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A personal point of view I started my career at Wat Tyler ten years ago, at a time when the park was already a popular destination for the local community.

Its contrast of habitats offered a diversity of wildlife for those seeking peace and tranquillity and built facilities such as the Motorboat Museum, miniature railway, retail craft workshops and marina appealed to wide range of other visitors. Sculpture, however, were not in prospect and coming from a fairly ‘purist’ background in nature conservation, I confess that they were never likely to have been initiated by me!

When I was approached by the Council’s Arts Development Officer in 2006, with a proposal to locate modern sculpture at Wat Tyler, it was the connection with local schools and the on-going educational potential of the project that struck a chord. By that time, we had in place a very low-key series of sculptures depicting the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, including an artist’s impression of Wat Tyler himself. The historic context had been the appeal in this case, but art for arts sake – that was something else!

Thinking back, I was probably quite obstructive to the proposals initially, and for good reason. Wat Tyler Country Park is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its unique assemblage of wildlife, so anything that might impact on the integrity of this wasn’t going to win my vote. Also, by 2002 the park had an enhanced range of activities, including very popular and challenging Adventure Play Areas, and in an increasingly risk-averse culture it might have been seen as irresponsible to introduce additional ‘climbing frames’ in the form of sculptures to the mix. Although the area of the park is 125 acres, it is only the relatively narrow belt of nonSSSI land either side of the access road that contains the buildings and activities, so with the addition of large sculptures, the place could have got a bit overcrowded.

In retrospect, I’m satisfied that taking the role of ‘Mr Nimby’ was the right contrast to the infectious enthusiasm of the Arts Development Officer and his team. I think the balanced view has produced an interesting selection of sculptures and their location, in most cases, has been inspirational. I did insist that each artist produce a computer image of their work, superimposed on a notional area of the park where they envisaged it being located. This proved invaluable for a philistine like me and was the final bit of evidence that I needed in my cultural journey to enlightenment!

I sincerely hope that the early interest and curiosity in the sculpture trail continues for many years. With the project plans for major heritage improvements to the whole park now in the delivery phase, the expectation is that visitor numbers will expand from their current level of 260,000 per annum to around 350,000 within three years of completion. That’s a big potential audience to spread the word about the sculpture trail and to help advertise Wat Tyler as a regional ‘destination of choice’.

Steve Prewer Open Spaces Manager January, 2008

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Creative thought and education As Project Manager for a Big Lottery funded out of school hours learning initiative, I was encouraged to develop partnerships within the local community, and provide an activity that would be of sustainable education value once the funding from the Big Lottery was completed.

Having organised various arts activities with support from Tim Balogun (Basildon District Council Arts Director) we decided to embark upon a major sculpture programme to be based at the Wat Tyler Country Park in partnership with Cleanway Pitsea Marshes Trust. We advertised for professional artists from across the country to submit proposal for workshops and the concept for a final piece, and from the extremely high standard of submissions, selected a number of ideas that would promote and enhance the recreational and educational facilities currently available at the Park.

Tailor-made workshops were designed to give students the opportunity to lean new skills and express themselves through ’handson’ design activity as well as physical creation of the works.

Eight local schools and over 800 students worked with the artists to produce 11 pieces - using various media and concentrating on many practical educational aspects. There have been sessions based on science, music, creative design, local nature and species, art and art history, investigating history and culture of the local area, environmental issues, together with discussion groups focussing on creative thinking and influencing the potential designs - ensuring the pieces are produced to a very high standard, and are appropriate and sustainable in the area.

For the community, the legacy is the sculpture park which challenges and delights visitors; for the young people involved the legacy is confidence in their ability to create something special and the sense of making their mark within their community.

Louisa Daynes Project Manager

A focal gateway The Veolia ES Cleanaway Pitsea Marshes Trust was established to manage the tax credits generated by the Landfill Communities Fund for the benefit of the community in the District of Basildon and the Borough of Castle Point. We work to promote the conservation and improvement of the environment, provide facilities in the interest of social welfare for leisure and recreation, and promote education in matters relating to the environment, its protection, conservation and improvement. The 125 acre Wat Tyler Country Park, with its manmade landscape and visitors’ facilities, is the gateway to Pitsea Marshes. It provides a focal point where visitors can see the influence of man’s activities on the environment, as well as viewing wildlife in its natural environment without detriment to the fragile habitats.

Back in 2000, one of our earliest long term funding commitments was to assist with the careful development of the Park. We were therefore delighted to support the proposal for the creation of a sculpture trail which held the promise of fulfilling our mission on the very edges of Pitsea Marshes and the adjoining Pitsea landfill site. Created in partnership with the local community, Sculpture at Wat Tyler is a cultural legacy for the people of Basildon which we feel sure will enhance the environment and quality of life in the area for many years to come.

Doug Benjafield Chairman of the Veolia ES Cleanaway Pitsea Marshes Trust 9

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wo years before Lewis Silkin addressed local people in Basildon to outline a vision for its future, Parliament passed the New Towns Act. Basildon was designated one of eight new ‘satellite towns’ that ringed London, from Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead in the North to Crawley in the South and Harlow in the East. After the largescale destruction of the Blitz and the damage to the nation’s industrial infrastructure, government and town planners were tasked with a huge rebuilding programme. A challenge in itself, reconstruction also presented an unparalleled opportunity – the task, as many involved saw it, was simply to rebuild a better Britain and to try and provide its people with an improved environment and standard of living.

The recent story of Basildon, Pitsea, Laindon, Canvey and the surrounding areas is therefore intimately connected with this utopian vision of post-war Britain, a vision that now seems difficult to understand and recapture. The new towns of the 1940s and later the 1960s have come to be viewed as illustrative of the mistakes of centralised planning – imposed settlements consisting of ugly and alienating architecture that have not aged well and that people find hard to love. Originally envisaged as London ‘overspill’, yet separated from the metropolis by the green belt, the new towns have a character that is neither metropolitan nor rural but somewhere in between.

Just as Basildon was created on the crest of the wave of post-war utopianism, so too was the concept of modern sculpture in the park as public amenity. The series of sculpture exhibitions organised by the Greater London Council (GLC) and the Arts Council at Battersea Park in the late 1940s and 1950s formed the template for a later generation of British Sculpture Parks, particularly Goodwood, Grizedale and Yorkshire Sculpture Park amongst others. The post-war sculpture exhibitions were places where people from all classes could enjoy a day out and see work from some of the most prominent British sculptors of the day such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Hugely popular, these exhibitions aimed to reach out to people for whom modern art had been previously inaccessible thereby contributing to the sense of a new and more equal society emerging from the aftermath of war.

This text aims, therefore, to provide a context for the new sculpture park at Wat Tyler Country Park by locating it within place and time. It is hoped that bringing together some of the history of the local area with an exploration of the origins of the contemporary public sculpture park will add to the experience and enjoyment of visitors to Wat Tyler Country Park. It seeks to complement Rob Bloomfield’s photographs, which not only record the interrelationship between the works of art and their environment but also act to capture the spaces in the park where a sense of its history is revealed and experienced.

Visions from a New Town by Dr. Catherine McMahon

‘Notorious for it’ During the 1920s and 1930s, the city expanded ever further into the countryside around it. The increasing availability of the private motor car and the public ‘charabanc’ meant that trips to the countryside became a regular leisure activity of rich and poor alike. During this time, makeshift developments of self-built chalets and temporary structures also began to emerge on land that property developers and farmers had neglected or rejected. These ‘plots’ were either purchased very cheaply or occupied unofficially on marginal land and they offered the poor and the enterprising a prospect of a place of their own, away from the city. Converted railway carriages, chalets, huts and shacks began to populate the banks of the Thames and the Lea forming ad-hoc developments. The largest plotland development during this time soon emerged around Pitsea and Laindon.

Described by officials at the time as ‘a vast rural slum’, it consisted of scores of self-build cottages that were not served by the sewage, electricity or water systems. However, as Hardy and Ward note: The little plots offered a refuge from the slums of London (…)

To the plotlanders from the metropolis, enjoying fresh air and a little land, there could be no such thing as a ‘rural slum’.1 During the aerial bombardment of East London in the Second World War, many families from West Ham, East Ham, Stepney and Poplar evacuated themselves to the Essex plotlands to escape the air raids and were joined after the war by others returning from war service.

The size of the plotland settlements in Pitsea and the surrounding area together with the lack of facilities meant that the local authorities were unusual in that they petitioned the government to be chosen as the site for a proposed new town and, in 1948, 7,800 acres was designated as the area for a new town centred on the small village of Basildon with responsibility for its development entrusted to the Basildon Development Corporation. 2 Although the authorities were keen for Basildon to develop into a new town in order to provide better and more planned support for the estimated 27,000 people living in the area, there was opposition from many of the residents, who feared compulsory purchase of the land they occupied. It was therefore agreed that development would begin in the village of Basildon and expand to incorporate Pitsea and Laindon, areas that were significantly more populated. Soon, new houses, roads, industrial parks, schools and factories were built according to planned development principles and new residents from the East London boroughs began to be re-housed to Basildon from 1951 onwards.

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Elsewhere, the advent of new towns caused great consternation, pitting advocates of maintaining the rural landscape against those who favoured the planned modernity of the new developments. E.M. Foster described the ‘collision of loyalties’ typical of this debate in a radio broadcast on Stevenage New Town, the area where his novel Howard’s End was situated. He agreed with the advocates of ‘planning and progress’ in terms of rehousing an estimated 1.5 million Londoners but could not free himself from ‘the conviction that something irreplaceable has been destroyed, and that a little piece of England has died as surely as if a bomb had hit it’. 3 The powerful image of the utopian forces of centralised planning achieving the destruction of large parts of the English countryside and thereby succeeding where the enemy had failed was common at the time and many critics were less measured than Foster in their comments. The vision of new towns as alien entities imposed on the English countryside with their inhabitants uprooted from urban communities still has echoes today. The way the new towns were designed in discrete ‘zones’ - industrial park, housing estate, public park, municipal buildings - means that they rarely have an area readily defined as a town centre.

This design contrasts strongly with older towns that have grown around a village or an historic centre and therefore new towns are regularly portrayed as spaces lacking a history, focus and often inaccurately seen as more likely to be surrounded by vast out of town retail spaces, complicated road networks and brutalist, unlovely housing estates.

In actuality, the development of Basildon like other post-war new towns, reflects an important moment in British history where there was a genuine attempt to build a new, more equal society. Needless to say the utopian vision that inspired these developments was short-lived but for a brief moment it was very powerful impulse that took as its most visible form not only the design and architecture of new towns but in the exhibition of modern sculpture.

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Hardy, Dennis & Colin Ward, Arcadia for All (Nottingham, 2004), p. 7 The locations of proposed new towns under the 1946 Act generally faced heavy opposition from

an alliance of local residents, landowners and the local authorities concerned. Basildon therefore was an unusual case in this respect.

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Quoted in Matless, David Landscape and Englishness (London: Reaktion, 1998), p. 208.

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“memorials” “warning signs”

Art for all

– modern sculpture and public amenity The location of sculpture in a parkland or garden setting has a long history. From Ancient Rome to the palace of Versailles and the 18th century English estate (Castle Howard or Stowe, for example) with its picturesque, landscaped surroundings, sculpture has been intimately connected to an outdoor space. Because of its durability, sculpture was the medium that was best placed to articulate the interplay between ‘nature’ and ‘art’ that underpinned the impulse to site sculpture outdoors. Often these sculptures formed an entire scheme that were used to delineate different parts of the landscape – from different types of gardens, to artificial lakes and more unkempt spaces further away from the house such as woodland or ‘valleys’. They were also used to tell a story or create layers of narrative meaning – statues of Venus were often placed in shaded grottos, a perfect setting for the goddess of love to help inspire amorous feelings in its visitors. These schemes required a knowledge and appreciation of classical mythology and were enjoyed by the landed gentry who wished to display their sophisticated tastes in private estates.

The industrial revolution, rapid expansion of the British Empire and emergence of an urban middle class during the 19th century ushered in an era of civic pride expressed through amenities that were accessible to the general public. This was the time when many of the London parks began to open their doors to the interested public (albeit often at restricted times) and the National Gallery was founded. Cities such as Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester whose wealth was generated through new industries such as steel manufacture, engineering and trade with the colonies, established impressive public buildings and collections of art that expressed wealth and civic pride. However, much of the sculpture commissioned for public display was commemorative or didactic, aimed at communicating Britain’s military, economic and political might. A good example of this is the Albert Memorial commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her husband and situated in Kensington Gardens. Although art and culture formed an aspect of the Victorian society’s concern with working class ‘improvement’, the taste for difficult ‘modern’ art remained very much the preserve of a minority.

The general hostility towards modern art in the first half of the 20th century meant that large-scale commissions from modern sculptors such as Jacob Epstein or Henry Moore were rare. When they did occur, they were always accompanied by controversy. The cost and visibility of such large-scale sculptural pieces meant that these commissions tended

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Council (LCC), with its large population was the most active and important patron of the arts. In 1948, after two years of planning in collaboration with the Arts Council, it staged the first Open Air Sculpture Exhibition at Battersea Park in London.

to be awarded to more established and conservative artists. However, a renewed interest in the English countryside and a concomitant desire amongst modern artists to develop a more ‘native’ expression focused on nature and landscape resulted in a small number of private commissions for large-scale sculpture in a landscape setting.

One of the most well known examples of such commissions was Henry Moore’s Recumbent Figure (1938) made for the garden of the house of modernist architect Serge Chermayeff in Sussex. An opened out, horizontal figure, it was designed, as Henry Moore put it, to become ‘a mediator between modern house and ageless land’. The organic, fluid shape of the sculpture echoed the rolling English countryside and the interplay between the figure and the landscape created powerful associations between the human figure (even if it was heavily abstracted) and nature. This kind of work by sculptors such as Moore and Barbara Hepworth presented modern art as organic and natural - and it was these associations that carried through to the post-war period, particularly in relation to a new era of public art and amenity.

In 1945, the Arts Council was brought into existence to foster, encourage and fund the arts, from music and theatre to opera, ballet and the visual arts. Its remit was not only to use government funding to support key national institutions such as the Royal Opera House but also to reach out to people across the UK who might never have had an opportunity to experience some of these elite and London-centric cultural activities. At the same time, local authorities were given the powers to allocate a percentage of their budgets to support the arts and London County

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Designed to bring modern art to the general public, it was deemed a huge success with over 170,000 visitors over a three-week period attending a programme of events, lectures and workshops as well as being actively encouraged to touch and interact with the work on display. The obvious success of the exhibition meant that the open-air sculpture exhibitions continued right through to 1966 with each exhibition having a different theme. The Arts Council, given their remit, were keen to extend the model of open air sculpture exhibitions to the rest of the country and during the 1950s and 1960s, exhibitions toured the regions with similar success.

These exhibitions were temporary but the 1950s saw the first example of what we would now regard as a sculpture park open in Middleheim near Antwerp. Funded by local government, Middleheim began to acquire a permanent contemporary sculpture collection through the 1950s as well as hosting themed temporary exhibitions. Middleheim established the blueprint for the concept of the sculpture park, which was followed in Britain with the establishment of the first such park to open in Britain in 1977. Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), near Wakefield, combines a permanent collection of sculpture by Henry Moore ranged across the landscape, together with specially commissioned ‘site specific’ work by contemporary sculptors. Education and outreach programmes are integral to YSP’s activities as is the amenity aspect for local people.

YSP’s example was followed by a range of sculpture parks located in rural or semi-rural locations – Grizedale in the Forest of Dean and Goodwood in West Sussex being the most well known. These sculpture parks continue the association between modern sculpture and landscape explored by sculptors from the 1930s onwards and, moreover, build upon the desire to democratise and make art accessible to a general public, a desire that found its expression in the years immediately after the Second World War. n

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Wat Tyler Country Park Wat Tyler Country Park forms the site of what was once called ‘Pitsea Island’. Nature has now reclaimed a site that has seen layers of industrial activity and together with the history of the new town, this location articulates a complex spatial and historical reality.

Neither purely ‘natural’, given its previous incarnation as a munitions factory nor remotely urban, although it borders on an urban area, the space of the park reveals and illustrates the complexity of modern British history. By looking into its industrial past, the settlement and reconstruction of the area after the Second World War and the changing character of the surrounding space, bounded by the sea on one side and the huge metropolis on the other, we can explore and reveal a story that has often been marginalised in the grand narrative of a national history. The intersection of the past with place helps to provide a sense of where we come from and, moreover, where we might be going to.

Wat Tyler Country Park retains evidence of its industrial history from its time as a site for an explosives factory through to the tramlines and pill boxes of wartime4. Originally an agricultural site used for grazing local cattle, the land was sold to the British Explosive Syndicate in 1892 with the support from the government. The British Explosive Syndicate was licensed to manufacture and store nitro-glycerine (i.e. dynamite) on site with a view to supplying both the domestic and international markets and supporting British war efforts. Although documentation is sporadic, it appears that the factory and associated buildings grew rapidly in size given the increasing reliance of modern warfare on explosives, particularly evident during the First World War. A number of the original buildings from that time still survive as the ‘Weekend Cottages’ and also visible today are a number of blast mounds from this time that were used to test explosives.

After the First World War, it appears that activity at the factory was scaled down and although many similar factories manufacturing armaments were sold or decommissioned, Pitsea was retained, probably because of its strategic location. Near the Thames yet on the coast, its location and existing infrastructure facilitated rapid storage and supply to the army and navy. As such, the site continued to manufacture emergency national supplies of cordite and at the same time, many of the buildings were reconditioned as storage depots. In 1928, the Ministry of War bought the site and enhanced its logistic importance, particularly during the preparations for the outbreak of war in 1939.

The construction of four pillboxes on the site during the war points to the strategic importance of the site and its potential vulnerability to sea attack. Built between 1940 and 1941 to repel a likely invasion from the continent, pill-boxes varied in type but were low-rise constructions designed to mount infantry or anti-tank defences. Of the estimated 28,000 hastily constructed defensive fortifications, 6,000 remain, mostly ringing the U.K. coast. An example of one of the pill-boxes can be seen on page 12.

The end of the Second World War meant that as the new town of Basildon developed all around Pitsea, the role of the site as a key strategic sea transport store was gradually wound down. In 1969, Basildon District Council bought the site for the purpose of developing the site into an area for recreation as the population of the surrounding area continued to increase. Between 1969 and the early 1980s, when the park opened to the public, the remaining buildings were cleared leaving the small number that currently remains.

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I am indebted to Gary Houghton for his detailed research piecing the history of the park together from munitions factory to the Second World War (unpublished).

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The photography The photographs by Robert Bloomfield not only document the sculptures at Wat Tyler Park in situ but also attempt to capture the relationship between these works and the spaces they inhabit. In addition, the photographs reference how the park functions as a public amenity, revealing the spaces that are used by visitors – the children’s playground, the adventure playground and the café, for example – and those that are more off the beaten-track, such as the area towards the edge of Fobbing Marshes and Pitseahall Fleet. They also show the park as an educational resource used by local schoolchildren and their teachers, and the programme of workshops with local schoolchildren by many of the sculptors are present in this publication.

The sculptures that have been commissioned for the project are varied in form, ranging from the figurative (Robert Koenig’s evocation of Wat Tyler’s peasant revolt of 1381 and Clive Wakeford’s primary-coloured figures) through to minimalist abstraction (Simon Mackness’ Childhood Escapes or Troika’s Sonic Marshmallows). They have been designed and situated to emphasise different aspects of the park and its locality - Koenig’s peasants refer to a key moment in English history, which began in nearby Fobbing and they are positioned to face in the direction of London where the revolt came to a bloody end. Others involve local people either in their conception (Studio T.A.B. collected the secrets of local children for its piece) or through interaction with visitors to the park (Troika’s sonic installation experiments with the compression of sound waves to create an auditory effect).

Although most of these works are not truly site specific in that if removed from their location, they would substantially lose their meaning, the photographs presented here uncover a formal and spatial relationship with the environment in which they are situated.

In the photograph of Luke Warbuton’s Cockroach (p. 53) for example, the eye is immediately drawn from the sculpture to the pill-box behind it and correspondences created between the architectural structure and the mechanical insect-sculpture.

Similarly, the photograph of Michael Khumalo’s Togetherness (p. 57), creates formal and spatial dynamics with the plant and pylon which share its photographic space. These are objects that do not often inhabit the same world as art – pylons, pill-boxes or park benches – but which are inherent to the character and history of the place.

Equally visible from this collection of photographs is the spatial continuity between the industrial origins of the park and its present surroundings, from the cordite store, hidden by trees and foliage (p.12), to the nearby Coryton Refinery requisitioned as a backdrop to The Living Willow Viking Boat (p.40). In this way, the photographs show how the placing of each of the sculptures can act to reveal the park more fully and through this act of revealing, uncover a sense of its past. It is hoped that visitors to the park will enjoy not only exploring and interacting with the sculptures but also experience the journey and perspectives around the sculpture trail that are captured in this collection of photographs.

“Didn’t Wat Tyler lead the Peasant’s Revolt?”

“Wat Tyler created that park” 19

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01 Robert Koenig Title:

Material: Dimensions: Date:

After the Uprising: Rebel Leader Wat Tyler and his Followers after the Suppression of the Peasants Revolt in 1381 7 Sweet Chestnut Trees 3.35 Metres high 2006

In 1381 peasants from the Essex marshland villages marched on London to protest against the poll tax.

The rebellion was quickly suppressed. Most of the rebels were allowed to go home but the leaders were pursued, captured and executed. The leader of the peasant’s revolt was Wat Tyler.

In order to represent this mass of humanity marching on London Robert Koenig chose to carve 7 symbolic figures from sweet chestnut trees. Wat Tyler stands proudly at the front of this group, other figures are bound and captive behind him. Sited in a clearing and looking as if they have just emerged from the wooded area behind them the eleven foot carvings convey a sense of the drama of the event and its often overlooked importance in the history of the area.

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Above: The work in progress in Robert Koenig’ s studio on a farm in East Sussex Facing page: After the Uprising by Robert Koenig

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02 Natasha Carsberg Title: Sound Pods Material: Steel Dimensions: Three steel pods 2x2x2 metres Date: 2006

Visitors are encouraged to touch the Sound Pods to experience the contrasting forms and textures.

The sound element of the sculptures was explored and developed by pupils from Vange Primary School & Chalvedon School in Basildon. A spectrum of different sounds can be made by tapping the surfaces of the sculptures and by blowing through the pipes.

Natasha Carsberg is committed to exploring the natural environment through her sculpture. She works with local communities to produce artworks in the landscape which combine elements of both sculpture and garden design. She is particularly interested in producing sensory sculptures using smell, texture, colour and sound.

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Natasha Carsberg introduced the materials she uses in her own studio in her workshops at Chalvedon School. Pupils created forms using copper pipes, glitter, wire and tile, experimenting with a variety of tools and techniques.

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03 Bob Clayden Title: Material: Height: Date:

Sun and Water Printed Silk and Wooden Poles 4 Meters 2006 Produced on silk by the traditional cyanotype process, each blue and white flag is 1.2 meter square and flies from poles 4 meters above the reeds. The five pieces are themed around Wat Tyler Country Park: wildlife above and below the water; a cat referring to the stories of a black panther said to be living among the marshes along this part of the Thames; and finally the peace symbol as a reminder that this site was once an explosives factory before becoming a country park. The fifth flag was made as the United Nations Children’s Flag with the handprints of all the artists who made the works. A sixth flag was made and presented to Felmore School.

‘Sun and Water’ was coneceived as a temporary installation. The cyanotypes were printed onto silk which was designed to degrade over time as the wind unravels the fibres and scatters the fragments about the park. They were created by Bob Clayden and the children in the after school art club at Felmore Primary School helped by Yuko Moriyama, during the Autumn Term of 2006.

Bob Clayden is a community artist and documentary photographer working with traditional and contemporary photographic techniques.

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Top: Sun and Water by Bob Clayden.

Photo by Bob Clayden Bob Clayden’s dynamic workshops at Felmore School introduced pupils to the historical photographic process of the Cyanotype. Using a light sensitive formula invented in Victorian times, Bob and his young assistants created a number of flags which were installed in the park as a temporary site specific installation in the summer of 2007

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Studio T.A.B.

Title: Soothsayer Material: Stainless Steel, Galvanised Aluminium and Enamel Height: 4 Meters Date: 2006

Studio T.A.B. left a box at Basildon library for a month asking for children to submit their Secrets on the provided slips of paper. Studio T.A.B. also conducted a series of workshops at Cherry Tree School in Basildon, explaining the principles of Mirror Writing. Over 60 appropriate Secrets were gathered from school and library and engraved into the stainless steel panels.

The finished piece consists of a huge cylinder with a chamber that runs through it’s lower section. The panels display the Secrets and the ‘talking chamber’ invites confidences - without the fear of being heard.

The sculpture is housed within a cage-like structure, highlighting the notion that this is a guarded work - guarding secrets and guarding those who confide in it. However, young people may decide to bring a pocket mirror so as to decode the engraved secrets of their peers...

Studio T.A.B. is a multi discipline studio based in London.

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Above: close up of Soothsayer by Studio T.A.B. Facing page: Soothsayer by Studio T.A.B.

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05 Clive Wakeford Title: Why? Material: 68 stained wooden figures Height: 1 Meter Date: 2006

Why? comprises 34 male and 34 female wooden figures stained in bright colours. They are installed within an amphitheatre created by the blast walls which are all that remain of the explosives factory that once stood here. The graphic simplicity of the figures, remind one of performers, or perhaps a recently unearthed archeological discovery.

The simplicity of the piece was inspired through engaging with schoolchildren from Vange County Primary School with whom Clive worked during the commission. The schoolchildren’s pure enthusiasm inspired the bright primary colours and their thirst for knowledge was the inspiration for the question mark that forms the centre of the group. The figures’ height also refers to the children’s contribution and creates a further interpretation of the piece as a playground game. Finally, the artist challenges the viewer to consider the purpose and value of WHY? and of public artworks as a whole.

Clive Wakeford is based in Colchester. His artistic practice includes environmental artworks and public installations and he is also a painter.

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“it’s very creepy at night seeing the little tiny heads”

Above: Clive Wakeford installing ‘Why?’ at Wat Tyler Facing page: ‘Why?’ by Clive Wakeford

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The Living Willow Viking Boat, complete with fluttering bunting, is both a meeting place and a public artwork. The artwork is ‘site-specific’ - the site’s proximity to the Thames Estuary and the 12th century Norse invasions of East Anglia inform the work. Its peaceful location, wide views from its elevated position and abundant seating make it the perfect place to meet in.

06 Maggie Campbell Title: Material: Dimensions: Date:

The Living Willow Viking Boat Willow, Wood and Bunting 9 Meters long 2006

The boat was built by artist Maggie Campbell and a group of children from Cherry Tree Primary School during a wet, cold and windy winter half term.

Together they staked out the willow uprights and then wove in willow wands or ‘withies’, rather like weaving a basket. Finally they attached shields to the boat sides. Willow was chosen as the primary building material for the boat because it often grows close to water, is suitable for use by children and is a durable natural material. Living willow was used because of the added interest that the artwork would offer as it grew and changed.

Maggie Campbell works with a wide range of materials and undertakes a wide variety of projects, workshops and commissions.

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Maggie Campbell spent three days living and working at Wat Tyler to create her replica of a viking boat using traditional willow weaving techniques. Making use of the Wat Tyler Residential Centre, children from Cherry Tree assisted her throughout the whole process and the diaries they made at the time are a part of the documentation of the creation of the sculpture park.

“its made of the land that its on” “its going to get all mossy” 43

07 Troika Title: Sonic Marshmallows Material: Aluminium Dimensions: 2.5m Diameter Date: 2006

For Wat Tyler Country Park, we wanted to create something playful and physically engaging rather than something purely ornamental. Something that would be playful for the children, grasp their imagination, and that would be educative and intriguing. One of our sources of inspiration were the concrete sound-mirrors which can be found all around the English coast and which functioned like early radar to spy on incoming enemy planes. Their scale is majestic but their function remains unclear until it is experienced.

The Sonic Marshmallows create a stunning acoustic experience. They work like reflectors to create a precise beam of sound allowing a person standing in front of one of them to hear another person’s whispers sixty metres away across the pond that stands between them. The cylinders are also concave on the reverse side, allowing users to spy on people in the nearby carpark, animals in the woodland and to general keep the immediate environment under close surveillance.

Founded in 2003 by Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel, this multidisciplinary art and design studio focuses on the creative use of technology to develop projects both engaging and demanding to the user, where design and information never stray far from each other. Working on both self-initiated and commissioned projects, their development processes are born out of a mutual love for simplicity, playfulness and an essential desire for provocation.

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This page: Workshop at Chalvedon school Facing page: Sebastien Noel from Troika Troika introduced their sound project in the park to the students at Chalvedon with an illustrated lecture about the science behind their ideas. Students then investigated these fascinating theories with a series of practical experiments ranging from tin can walkie-talkies to amplification devices for old fashioned gramophone players.

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08 Simon Mackness Title: Childhood Escapes Material : Steel and Aircraft Paint Height: 1 Metre Date: 2006

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Simon Mackness conceived of Childhood Escapes as a graphic response to an environment.

Based on geographical diagrams and cutaways of the earth’s structure, the piece contrasts the natural environment of the park with the sharp graphic outlines of the sculpture.

The sculptures are sited at three different locations within Wat Tyler Country Park. The positioning of the clusters create places to sit, rest and view the landscape. The bright colours and shapes of the pieces naturally invite children to explore and climb.

Simon Mackness works out of a studio in London.

He describes himself as a conceptual pop artist, usually working in the medium of large prints and readymades. Tackling sensitive and taboo subjects in a witty, sharp and engaging way is where Simon feels most at home.

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Below: Childhood Escapes by Simon Mackness

“you get a good view” “the colours are really fab” “we hung out there for ages sitting on there” 50

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09 Luke ‘Dane’ Warburton Title: Cockroach Material: Raw Steel and Spary Paint Height: 4 Meters Date: 2006

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In simple terms Cockroach represents small creatures on a large scale. From the outside the sculpture references bugs, beetles and cockroaches but from the inside it creates a place in which the public can find shelter and protection under its shell. This interior space was painted by local young people to give an organic and personal dimension to the inside of the shell.

There are around 4000-7500 different species of cockroach but only a very small fraction of these are considered pests. Though our own species has been here for only 100-200 thousand years, species of cockroaches have lived on the earth for around 400 million years and are expected to outlive out the human population. Past civilisations such as the Ancient Egyptians believed the scarab, or dung beetle, represented regeneration, renewal and resurrection. For Luke Warburton, the cockroach represents the strength of small creatures and the survival of their species. It also relates to relates to our own society and its sub-cultures.

Cockroach is a man-made object, designed and made from man-made materials. It is futuristic and dynamic yet still a representation of a natural creature, situated in a natural environment. Wat Tyler Country Park as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Technical support from Daniel Warren Built by Chaz Braithwaite and John Perry at Chelsea Metal Works Installed by Steve Bennett, Malcolm Ridler volunteers at Wat Tyler Country Park

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Artist Luke Warburton visited Chalvedon School to talk to the students about his personal route into art and the ideas behind his popular Bug sculpture for the park. Luke began his career as a grafitti artist in London before his talents began to be recognised on a wider scale resulting in a number of public commissions for his work. The pupils explored typographic designs and styles and discussed the issues around the artistic sub-cultures within which Luke operates.

Above and facing page: Cockroach Below: Pupils from Chalvedon School spray paint the ’roach!

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“it’s a big bug thing”

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10 Michael Khumalo Title: Togetherness Material: Zimbabwean Springstone Dimensions: 1 Metre high Date: 2006

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Michael Khumalo has worked and exhibited both in the UK and abroad. He has been resident artist at the Wat Tyler Sculpture Park since 2004.

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With the enthusiastic support of art teacher Madeleine Murphy, sculptors Robert Koenig and Michael Khumalo ran a series of workshops with pupils from De La Salle School. Stone carver Khumalo taught the pupils how to use hammer and chisel to sculpt their own designs from large builders blocks. The workshops continued in Michael’s studio in Wat Tyler Country Park with the students helping Michael to work up the surfaces of the soap stone sculptures that he has created specifically for the project. Rob Koenig is a wood carver and his workshops at the school gave the pupils the opportunity to handle wood chisels and mallets to engrave their own designs.

Opposite: Togetherness by Michae Khumalo

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11 Tony Stallard Title: Sentinel Material: Solar Lights, Acrylic, Rice Paper and Yorkstone Dimensions: 3 Metres x 1.5 Metres Square Date: 2006

The interior of ‘Sentinel’ houses a map of the Ursa Minor constellation which is notable as the location of the polar star. The light aperture above causes the light to pass over the map for an hour or so in good sunlight.

It was felt because of the nature of its location at a cross-path and being so near to the moorings on the nearby creek and the estuary beyond, that this would be a ‘look out’ or ‘locator’ of sorts, but more importantly to suggest the relationship of what is above to what is below, and how we navigate space both on land and sea as a poetic relationship.

Tony Stallard works in the UK and internationally with site-specific light sculptures. These involve live events, new technologies, and designed systems responding to the ‘alchemical’ properties that Tony locates within any given project.

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Sentinel by Tony Stallard

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“I don’t really like it, (London) its dirty, too crowded, intimidating when you go there cos there’s gangs everywhere, well not gangs but groups of people” “I wouldn’t want to live in London, you can live just outside London, its nicer”

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An Aorta Publication

Sculpture at Wat Tyler documents the creation of an important new sculpture park at Wat Tyler Country Park near Basildon in Essex. Representing a walk in the park, the photographs encounter the diversity of contemporary sculptural practice, from traditional woodcarving to postmodern sonic ‘marshmallows’, all created in collaboration with local schools. The photographs create a dialogue between the sculpture and the surrounding park landscape, reclaimed from its previous existence as an explosives factory and overlooking the Coryton refinery and Fobbing marshes. The book celebrates the contribution of local schoolchildren in working with the artists to create the work while a critical text by Dr. Catherine McMahon places Sculpture at Wat Tyler in the context of Basildon’s history as a ‘New Town’ and the emergence of sculpture parks in post-war Britain.

Edited and Photographed by Robert Bloomfield: www.robertbloomfield.com Designed by Smoke: www.20snoutspleaseguv.co.uk