Titled Terra Firma, this edition of diep~haven takes the relationship between the human and the landscape as its starting point: discarding any assumptions of the earth as neutral ground, the
festival will explore the tensions between human designs and the autonomous forms of intelligence that reside in the natural and, more specifically, botanic world. Key to the project is the
ambition to commission and exhibit work that moves beyond representation and is active, performative and urgent in reframing our position in the living landscape.
The diep~haven programme annually begins with a series of artist residencies in which both emerging and established practitioners are invited to respond to a central theme, in media ranging from
photography and film to site-specific installation, sculpture and performance. For Terra Firma, the ten international artist residencies are rooted in conversations of nature versus culture, and
will take place in rural, agricultural and urban gardens.
In East Sussex, the residencies will comprise Gabriela Albergaria at National Trust property, Sheffield Park, an informal landscape garden first laid out in the 18th century by Capability
Brown; and Ève Chabanon in residence between the Growing Together Community Garden in Newhaven and Whitehawk Community Food Project in Brighton, in partnership with O N C A gallery. Mentored
by Brighton Photo Fringe, Matthew Beach will be in residence at Charleston House and Garden, former home of the Bloomsbury Group, whose quintessential painters' garden was created by Vanessa
Bell and Duncan Grant; and a residency by Valérie Eglés will take place at Great Dixter, whose house and grounds have been developed by gardener and gardening writer
Christopher Lloyd, originally designed by Arts and Crafts architect Edwin Lutyens.
Across the Channel, Azadeh Fatehrad will be in residence at the only Lutyens house in France, Bois des Moutiers, whose garden is the work of Victorian artist and gardener Gertrude Jekyll; and
a residency by John Newling and Aurelie Sement will take place across two organic linen farms in Normandy, in partnership with Galérie Duchamp. At Château de Bosmelet, a 10-acre park first
set out 300 years ago by the head gardener of Château de Versailles, and lined with the longest avenue of linden trees in Europe, performance artists Essi Kausalainen, Sarah Duffy and Freya
Gabie will develop works ahead of a weekend of public performance, poetry and culinary events.
Each of the ten residencies will culminate in a new commission which will be exhibited as part of the summer festival programme in Dieppe, Newhaven, Yvetot, Brighton and beyond, with
further details to be announced in spring 2018.
In addition to supporting the creation of new works, diep~haven is dedicated to widening access to contemporary art, viewing culture as vital in sustaining ways to live together.
Therefore educational events are key to the festival, and this year, the programme has begun in Dieppe, with a project titled ‘The Moving Forces’ catalysed by the recent discovery a
Renaissance grotto designed by illustrious Norman engineer, Salomon de Caus. Working in collaboration with French artist Alice Schÿler Mallet and their teacher Jean Charles Pigeau,
students from The School of Art and Design, Le Havre-Rouen, will develop responses to this artefact, emerging as both small interventions inside, and large-scale architectural works
outside, of Musée de Dieppe.
The 2018 festival is curated by Alice Mallet, Rosie Hermon and Chloe Hodge.
