The London based artist collective, Changeable Beast (25 artists and 4 guest artists), brought their ambitious site-specific exhibition Second Nature to Tremenheere, offering the viewer an opportunity to see it from a new perspective.
I had the opportunity to catch up with the lead curator, Tessa Garland, who explained how Changeable Beast and Second Nature have evolved over time and how her long-established relationship with Tremenheere is very much part of that trajectory.
Second Nature
Tessa Garland in Conversation with Rachel Hindley
(This is an extract – full interview can be found here)
The London based artist collective, Changeable Beast (25 artists and 4 guest artists), bring their ambitious site-specific exhibition Second Nature to Tremenheere, offering the viewer an opportunity to see it from a new perspective. Whilst it might provoke a cognisance of familiarity by drawing upon Tremenheere’s existing sociocultural, geographical and geological significance, it also challenges and disrupts any assumptions about it as an historical site fixed in a moment in time. Born from the vibrant mutability of Changeable Beast, Second Nature transcends the enduring statis of the granite formation upon which it is assembled, transgressing the boundaries of materiality and process and slipping between the cracks in time and space.
Consequently, the viewer is exposed to a rich repertoire of paradoxical tensions; urban and rural, man-made and organic, past and present. The relationship between humans, nature and material culture, as well as the meaning and quality of time invested in nurturing an artistic collaboration, are inextricably woven into the fabric of Second Nature.
I had the opportunity to catch up with the lead curator, Tessa Garland, who explained how Changeable Beast and Second Nature have evolved over time and how her long-established relationship with Tremenheere is very much part of that trajectory.
Tremenheere – A Shared History
RH: How has your personal relationship with and knowledge of Tremenheere’s history shaped your decision to curate Second Nature?
TG: A long friendship and connection with Jane and Neil, who were always really supportive of the arts and myself as an artist have played a big part in this.
Also, the place Tremenheere is very special. My family has roots in Mounts Bay and my dad used to play in Tremenheere field and woods as a boy, living in Long Rock.
I grew up in Penzance and then went away for many years until I returned in the ‘90s. I embedded myself in West Penwith culture, because it was/is such a rich environment – so many artists – a wonderful place to exist and life just took off with artists and events. I was a founding member of this group called PALP which ran artists led projects and like a lot of artists we started to look for opportunities to show work, have dialogue together and to share our work.
Jane and Neil said they had some land where they lived in Heamoor, where PALP had its first show called Shed. They were very generous, giving us donkey sheds and their sprawling garden. We then created all of these amazing site-specific works. I think they enjoyed it; they enjoyed being with artists.
Neil and Jane then acquired the land belonging to Tremenheere. These were the early days, but Neil always had the vision to make it into a sculpture garden right from the word go. He was very ambitious, and he started to talk to us about James Turrell and somehow, he managed to bring in and build the amazing Skyspace. Having already created Shed, PALP then went on to ask whether we could use the land at Tremenheere. We’d been invited to a few outdoor BBQs and were amazed at its beauty and keen to make site responsive work. At that stage a few pathways were being built so we were guided by these to build works, create a sculpture trail and formed an exhibition called, Field of Vision.
So right from the word go there was this vision from Neil and Jane – a marriage of art and plants and it’s been interesting over the years, to watch this come into fruition.
RH: It’s great that you experienced it at that time in its raw state, before it became landscaped.
TG: The café and gallery weren’t there. I remember for Field of Vision we invited lots of artists down from all over the UK and hired an old marquee from somewhere in Pendeen and put it up very badly. Lots of the artists were sleeping in it and it blew down on top of them in the night. It was all quite chaotic, but we had the will and the energy to put the exhibition together. We had a lot of fun in the early years. The exhibition, Field of Vision which included a twist on the village fete, with artists and plant stalls and of course performances that sprung up across the events. The public came, it was good fun and very successful. So, through these events, I got to know Jane and Neil quite well and that cemented our relationship.
In 2002 I moved away to London but regularly return to Penwith. It’s been great to keep visiting Tremenheere and watch it evolve.
In London, I have been making films mainly, but a few years ago I joined MASS a mentoring group for artists and sculptors to share their studio practice and became more interested in form and materiality. Out of MASS, we formed the collective Changeable Beast. We’ve all been out there looking for exhibition opportunities, so I contacted Neil to see about the possibility of showing at Tremenheere which he has kindly agreed to.
Changeable Beast – A Collaboration
RH: Why did you name the collective Changeable Beast?
TG: It was a collective decision. The group often makes site sensitive work, so the work can often develop from their response to a site rather than imposing an idea upon it. The work continues to be tweaked and edited within the exhibition site itself. Therefore, it is still alive and changing, always in a state of mutability – hence the name Changeable Beast.
RH: So, what would you say feeds the collaboration?
TG: Well, I would say that within the group everyone has an interest in the material and materiality of things and because we visit each other’s studios, a kind of magpieing takes place, where we bring what we have seen and heard back into our own practice. We do a lot of sharing and we have a WhatsApp group, which is constantly pinging with information. The studio practice is key to all this because there are lots of conversations being had as people are making and using materials, giving feedback or prompts and deciding how to move forward with their work.
Ian Dawson, Lockerley 6 Remix, 2023,
3D printed PET, 230 x 95 x 105cm
RH: So, there’s a real generosity within the group and a sense of reflecting and sharing in real time.
TG: I think this point about real time is important. I think sculpture offers that, because a lot of it is process led. It takes time to build up, research the materials and let people into the discussion during the process of making. I think sculpture is one of those things that does often slow things down to allow for things to break open and be dissected.
The Evolution of the Concepts
RH: I was wondering how the four concepts that run throughout the show; Living Surfaces, Human Nature, Locus Solus and Postnature evolved?
TG: Because there is a lot of us and there are lots of voices. At the beginning of June, we set up a whole day where we got together and shared our ideas, works in progress and what we might want to show at Tremenheere.
Some of the artists had a few ideas on the go but weren’t sure which one to focus on or wanted a bit of feedback about what they were doing. We each talked for about 15/20 mins while one of our guest artists and author of the catalogue essay, Ian Dawson, listened and made notes. The concepts became Ian’s way of organising the works into mini accessible parts in order to make sense of them, which really helped the curation.
So, these parts are Ian’s constructs and through his interpretation and writing, he was able to look at the common threads and draw them together. It was a nice way of grouping the artists and forming connections.
RH: Did identifying and naming these connections enhance the development of new ideas?
TG: Yes. I would say that the thing all artists like to do is make new work, because it makes them feel like they are always moving forward. I find whenever I curate a show, very few artists want to show old work. They always see it as an opportunity for development.
Some people had a sketch of an idea, while others had gone a bit further. Some people are very research based – for example Tina Culverhouse who is very into process, does lots of tests and has shared her processes throughout the show’s development. And then you have artists such as Katie Houston, who works in a very emotional responsive way, so ideas will just emerge and arrive quite intuitively, often through performance.
The key to it has been the sharing. Ian was able to have conversations with us throughout the process of making. A shared Google Drive really enhanced this process – that’s the brilliant thing about the internet, you don’t always have to be together to see what one another is doing.
RH: It’s interesting that relationship between writing and making. The writing in a sense became an extension of the work. The essay is in the end also an art object in and of itself – perhaps a conclusive statement of Changeable Beast’s collaboration would you say?
TG: In a sense, Ian was curating the writing – the essay is a curated piece of work. He set out the environment and then grouped and threaded together the artwork’s concepts to shape and form the essay.