Met Consultancy Group’s surveyors regularly undertake landscape projects for a wide variety of purposes, but few as unique or unusual as that we recently performed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP).
It involved providing a topographic survey of the Park from the South side of the lake, extending across the dam to take in the landscape between the lake and the River Dearne. Met used a combination of survey grade GPS and a Total Station (which measures distances and angles to give millimeter accuracy) with the survey related to Ordnance Survey to give a much wider view of the Estate.
Nothing unusual about that you might think, and indeed the firm undertakes numerous surveys to capture topographical data and map out landscapes to inform design and planning proposals.
This however, was to enable internationally renowned artist, David Nash, to plan the location of two new permanent art installations in the Park.
His new commission ‘Black Mound’ overlooks the Park’s historic lakes and references the natural cycle of wood. The work is made from coal and 91 carved oak logs charred black through carefully controlled burning.
David Nash says: “With wood sculpture one tends to see ‘wood’, a warm familiar material, before reading the form: wood first, form second. Charring radically changes this experience. The surface is transformed from a vegetable to a mineral – carbon – and one sees the form before the material.
Echoing Nash’s famous Ash Dome planted in 1977, the second commission ‘49 Square’ comprises 49 Himalayan birch trees, which, planted in seven rows of seven, will grow to form a white cube on the lake’s embankment.
The trees are only 1.5 metres high at present and it will be 3-4 years before they develop the classic white bark. As they grow the lower branches will be removed, ending up with five metre white trunks above which will spread the tree canopy.
The artist was able to plan the position of these trees using the surveyed contours revealed by Met Consultancy’s plans however it will take around 10 years for the trees to reach the stage whereby the installation itself is fully revealed.
The works have been commissioned as part of the newly formed European Land Art Network, an initiative which seeks to extend critical debate and understanding around the contribution art and artists can make to the sustainability of landscape, rural development and regeneration.
Artist David Nash
David Nash is one of Britain’s leading sculptors. Although his working methods encompass those of carpenter, woodsman/forester, excavator/archaeologist (as seen in Pyramids and Catapults) and he discovers sculptural units within nature, he is first and foremost a sculptor – exploring and creating forms in space. Trees have been his main source of inspiration and material, and he has often said they are 90% space. His most powerful work is in response to new environments; to new challenges presented by natural forces. For more info on the project visit ysp.co.uk