preserve

Anya Gallacio at the Turner Contemporary

Words Justin Photographs Turner Contemporary and Posy Gentles

A new exhibition has opened at Margate’s Turner Contemporary and it’s a show of special interest to us here in Faversham. Scottish born, California based international artist Anya Gallaccio has turned her eyes to the landscape and environment of East Kent.

Anya Gallaccio, The inner space within, 2008 2024

The trunk and canopy of a felled tree currently spans the entirety of a first-floor gallery, its truncated branches stretching wall to wall. It’s a version of an installation Gallaccio has shown before, but this one brings her particular brand of conceptual art close to home. The tree was cut from Lees Court. It’s just one of the many thousands of East Kent ash trees losing the fight against ash dieback disease (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus).

According to the Woodland Trust Ash dieback will ultimately kill up to 80% of ash trees across the UK — a stark statistic in a county where the ash is the commonest tree, making up one fifth of our arboreal population. It will change the landscape forever and threaten many species which rely on ash.

So, while Gallaccio’s Margate exhibition is inspired by Kent’s natural environment, it is no cosy celebration of The Garden of England. Her transposed ash tree feels visceral for those who notice the ever-growing deadwood in the countryside around Faversham. She uses it as an exploration of transformation and impermanence in what we may have assumed was forever. Under her lens even such majestic timbers as the Lees Court ash seem ephemeral.

Falling from grace, a curtain of supermarket grade Gala apples gently decaying.

Even more striking in this respect is ‘Falling from Grace’ — a curtain of local apples threaded beadlike on traditional hop twine hanging from the gallery ceiling. The intention is that the fruit will naturally decay over the duration of the show, drying, mutating and becoming pungent, a process the artist embraces for its regenerative appeal. The seeds will be collected at the end of the show and used to plant a crab apple hedge around the orchard Gallaccio has been commissioned to create at Lees Court. And according to the exhibition label ‘The decayed apples will be composted for Turner Contemporary’s staff garden’.

Time is our choice of how to love and why (ebony), 2005

Thankfully the show is as much about regeneration as it is about decay. There is a public engagement element too. Complementing Gallaccio’s exhibition, Turner Contemporary has developed an extensive school programme in partnership with the artist. This programme, titled An Apple a Day, aims to explore Kent’s countryside, heritage, and history through the lens of the apple and county’s apple orchards. Students from across Kent will visit the national fruit collection at Brogdale to learn about apple growing. They will plant a new orchard designed by Gallaccio at Lees Court, using apple trees donated by Creating Nature’s Corridor. Schools participating in the project will also visit the gallery and receive a tour of the exhibition from the artist. This initiative’s legacy will be a new school resource for teachers, enabling them to teach Key Stage2 curriculum subjects using apples and Kent’s history and geography. The resource will be shared with every primary school in Kent.

Beautiful Minds… (dene hole), 2024

But it’s not all about trees. The artist has also become fascinated by the chalk which underlies much of Kent and links it geologically to Europe. ‘Beautiful minds’ is a meditation on chalk, exploring the remarkable deneholes (ancient chalk extraction pits) which still lie beneath parts of the Kent landscape. Gallaccio has explored and surveyed the extensive Lees Court deneholes and recreates a version of the space within them as a matrix using twenty first century 3D printer technology. It sounds far-fetched on paper but watching Turner’s 3D printers squeezing out a sticky blend of chalk and porcelain like toothpaste is compelling. You can watch the video here, but if you want to see it in action in the flesh, the gallery notes ‘The printer will operate daily at noon, when possible’.

I will walk down to the end with you if you will come all the way down with me, 2007 2024

Also from the Lee’s Court project is the piece ‘I will walk with you’ which holds a dramatic space in front of the Turner’s vast windows overlooking the sea. These are nets loosely woven from hop twine by a group, so that every link and every repeated knot, while superficially identical, is unique to individual who made it. It’s worth watching the gallery’s introductory video just to see this close up.

‘Beauty’, 1991 2024

As the largest survey exhibition to date of the artist’s work, there’s much more to see. Gallaccio reprises one of her best known pieces, ‘Beauty’ from 1991, with its slowly-wilting gerberas.

The wonder that’s keeping the stars apart, 2007

There is a series of her bizarrely appealing bronze castings from the roots of Jerusalem artichokes: the title presumably a nod to the ee cummings poem ‘i carry your heart with me’.

Dirt drawing

The ‘Dirt Drawings’, huge sheets marbled entirely with natural minerals harvested by the artist, deserve looking at again and again. Expansive yet intricate thy are the product of Gallaccio’s longstanding interest in the marbling process, where chance takes the role in the character of finished product.

Highly recommended, ‘preserve’ runs until 26 January 2025

at Turner Contemporary, Margate, CT9 1HG

Opening Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, plus Bank Holidays: 10am–5pm

Free Entry

The Gallery website and video presentations are here