Photo Flash: First Look at Situations' THE TALE Inspired by Phillip Hoare
By: BWW News Desk Sep. 13, 2017
Internationally renowned producer Situations (Theaster Gates' Sanctum for Bristol and the 100-year Future Library in Oslo) has developed a new type of arts event for the coastal bay area of Torbay in South Devon. The Tale will take place over three weekends in September 2017 and invites the audience to undertake a journey across three towns in the footsteps of writer Philip Hoare, encountering artworks and performances inspired by Hoare's writings on the untold stories of this place.
Check out brand new photos below!
Situations is known for imaginative public art works that take visitors on extraordinary adventures such as Folkestone Digs (where German artist Michael Sailstorfer buried gold under the sand on Folkestone beach and invited members of the public to find it). For The Tale, the exact locations and timings of the performances and installations by renowned artists such as Chris Watson, Ellen Gallagher and Claire Cunningham are unannounced. Rather, visitors are encouraged to start their journey of discovery at Torquay Museum and let the experience unfold over one or two days. The artists have worked closely with local residents and young people in the Torbay area over the last two years to create a diverse range of artworks including sculptures, installations, performance and dance, sound-works and guided explorations.
In Hoare's text, the writer refers to the iconic figure of Icarus as a recurrent theme in which he explores his own associations with Torbay as a boy and teenager, the multiple lives and losses woven into the history of the bay (particularly those transgressive individuals who appeared, like Icarus, to fly too close to the sun) and the associations with glamorous distant places that the name itself - English Riviera - conjures up. The Tale will examine these ideas as incidents in landscape, often alien and out of place, sometimes subtle, at other times theatrical.
Photo credit: Paul Blakemore
Philip Hoare explains an artefact in The Tale, The Room of Lost Souls, which was created by Hoare and Welsh artist Marc Rees.
Australian performance collective one step at a time like this have created a backstreet audio tour of Torquay, Immergence, devised with 8 local young people, which takes audience around locations in Torquay.
The Alphington Ponies, two local legends from 1800s Torquay, recreated for The Tale by Welsh artist Marc Rees, appear again in Fleet Street Shopping Centre, in central Torquay.
An audience member looks out to sea in Immergence, a guided audio tour co-devised by Australian performance collective one step at a time like this and 6 young people from local youth charity Play Torbay.
Australian performance collective one step at a time like this have created a backstreet audio tour of Torquay, Immergence, devised with 8 local young people, which takes audience around locations in Torquay.
Performance artist Claire Cunningham builds a structure from 200 pairs of crutches on Breakwater Beach, Brixham, a historic shipbuilding location, in Beyond the Breakwater.
Audiences wander up to ancient Berry Head Quarry to hear sound recordist Chris Watson’s immersive sound installation, No Man’s Land, an underwater journey around the world’s oceans.
An audience member looks more closely at Chalk Water, in Berry Head Nature Reserve.
Audiences sit in deckchairs at Shoalstone Pool, a seawater lido dyed pink to watch the final performance of The Tale, Norwegian choreographer Ingri Fiksdal’s Diorama for Shoalstone Pool.
Diorama for Shoalstone PoolÂ
Performance artist Claire Cunningham builds a structure from 200 pairs of crutches on Breakwater Beach, Brixham, a historic shipbuilding location, in Beyond the Breakwater.
Sequined figures stand where the land meets the sea in Norwegian choreographer Ingri Fiksdal’s Diorama for Shoalstone Pool. Photo credit: Briony Campbell
Sequined figures stand where the land meets the sea in Norwegian choreographer Ingri Fiksdal’s Diorama for Shoalstone Pool. Photo credit: Briony Campbell
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