The eastern end of Folkestone’s Stade will be the site for former Turner Prize winner Cornelia Parker’s work
Festival: Folkestone Triennial – A Million Miles From Home, various venues, Folkestone, June 25 – September 25 2011
In 2008, the inaugural Folkestone Triennial proved an unstoppable triumph for the slightly unfashionable Kent town.
Tracey Emin offered an installation commenting on teenage pregnancy, Mark Dion made a giant seagull on wheels, and critics from miles around lapped it up. Three years on, the next episode launched in an oyster bar inside London’s St Pancras Station today, a fittingly idiosyncratic setting for a team whose venues this time around include a deckchair storage space built into a cliff and Folkestone’s oldest church.
Spanish sculptor Cristina Iglesias’s proposal
“It’s a bit like second album syndrome,” laughs German curator Andrea Schlieker, sounding part-surprised, part-amused at the success of her masterplan.
“It’s a hard act to follow. There are a lot of people coming to the launch, that’s for sure, but God knows whether people will enjoy it as much as they enjoyed the first one. Back then we had no idea whether anyone would come.”
This year’s theme is A Million Miles From Home, featuring 19 artists and groups making works across the town. “The title itself expresses a feeling of being in a strange place or an unfamiliar territory, and what we want to capture with it is also the sense of bewilderment and otherworldliness that alludes to, a sense of unease and wonder,” explains Schlieker.
“The first Triennial focused on the history and people of Folkestone itself – I thought that was a very important starting point to make it relevant for the residents. This one will be very much connected to the local and regional realities, but it’s really a lot more about looking out rather than in.”
A mysterious silhouette of one of the shortlisted candidates for Parker’s bronze sculpture, based on the Little Mermaid
The launch flyer shows a gloomy dock linking the Kent coast with the world, echoing the key themes of migration, exile and colonialism.
“All I knew is that it had to be different,” she adds. “It couldn’t be another show about Folkestone – that would be too naval-gazing and dull. I’ve invited artists who are very well-known, like Cornelia Parker and Martin Creed, but I’ve also invited completely unknown young artists from places like Egypt and Kosovo.”
Former Turner Prize winner Parker is going to immortalise one local woman in a bronze based on Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid (she’s currently mulling over a shortlist), and Caribbean-raised British artist Hew Locke has made For Those in Peril on the Sea, a large-scale installation based on the last line of a hymn featuring ships suspended from the nave of St Mary and St Eanswythes.
Zineb Sidera, the French-Algerian video artist famous for her bleak visions of ships washed up on the African shores, also contributes a film exploring the symbolism of lighthouses.
A former deckchair storage space beneath the Leas will be turned into a cinema for French-Algerian artist Zineb Sidera’s film work
“I don’t want it all to be hard-hitting, political, tough, very serious work,” stresses Schlieker.
“For an exhibition that takes place in public spaces, if it’s all on one note it will become boring. We have a theme that is quite challenging and involves a lot of hard-hitting topics, but done in a way which is stimulating and engaging.”
Schlieker “fell in love” with Folkestone five years ago. “It was full of possibilities because it’s a rough diamond,” she suggests. “Artists are more interested in places like that than anywhere polished.
“There’s the Turner Contemporary next year in Margate, Hastings is planning the Jerwood Gallery, the Towner is excellent in Eastbourne, and the De La Warr [in Bexhill-on-Sea] is doing really good work. It’s often the towns that are quite down-at-heel which are reinventing themselves with art and culture.”
She was asked to devise a festival by Creative Foundation, Folkestone’s creative regeneration project owned by Roger de Haan, the billionaire philanthropist who has poured millions into the town.
St Mary and St Eanswythes, Folkestone’s oldest church, hosts an installation of ships by Hew Locke
“I came up with the idea of the Triennial never thinking that the trustees would go for something as ambitious as this, rather than a one-off,” she admits.
“But they did, so here we are. I thought that we had done something fantastic in 2008. I was so thrilled and touched that world-famous artists like Christian Boltanski, Tracey Emin and Mark Wallinger had made such considerate and poignant works. The artists pulled out all the stops and got it spot on.”
Schlieker is cheerily mindful of the pressure enhanced attention brings. “The countdown is running – we’ve got so much to achieve in nine months,” she muses.
“This is the terrifying moment in the project where you know, ‘bloody hell, this is it, we can’t turn back.’”
Visit the Triennial online for full programme details
From: http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/ART308902
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