Dilston Grove

a site-specific installation by

Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harveysound by Graeme Miller

1-19 October 2003

Dilston Grove

In their most ambitious UK project to date, artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey grow the whole interior of a deconsecrated Italianate church in south London with living grass.

The now derelict Clare College Mission Church in Southwark will have life literally drawn back into its very fabric. Millions of seeds planted over the entire vertical surface are nurtured into a vibrant skin of young grass.

Working in collaboration with sound artist and composer Graeme Miller, the installation will respond to the breadth and presence of the interior architecture and the resonance of the space.

They cover to discover; their work brings new textures to old surfaces, fresh visions to tired images. As artists they remain in control; as witnesses to the power of their materials, they are in awe - Nuovo Icona Gallery, Venice 1996*.

The Artists

Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey pursued independent interests in the fields of theatre and performance, fine art and film until they met in 1989. This precipitated an enduring relationship and has led to exhibitions and site-specific installations across the world, including two recent temporary works for the Chicago Public Art Programme and a commission for the National Eisteddfod in Wales. Their artworks frequently reflect both scientific and architectural concerns. Although they embrace diverse materials, it is the medium of grass and their unique sensibility with it that has won them international acclaim.

Graeme Miller is a theatre maker, composer and artist. Many of his sound works, including the current Linked project (2003), reflect psychic and social geography. He has an established working history with Ackroyd and Harvey and shares with them a direct response to place and a process where inhabiting a place is integral to making work.

For previous examples of the artists work

The Site The Church was reconstructed in 1911 after land subsidence had caused damage to the 1886 foundations. Now, the whole structure floats on London Clay by means of a concrete raft, and is one of the first reinforced roughcast buildings in England. The unusual design of the church and the peculiar angles that the natural light lends to its clear, long, timber roofed interior gives rise to a curiously secular quality.