‘Through the application of clay, germinating grass seed, water and natural light the boundary between growth and decay, reverie and renewal was exposed within this repository of spiritual memory.’
The renowned British artists Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey in cooperation with sound artist and composer Graeme Miller, have (or had, it was done in 2003- is it still up?) brought life back into an edifice which all, including the church, had left for dead. Dilston Grove, located in Bermondsey, London, and formerly known as Clare College Mission Church, was the first concrete church built in the country and has since been deconsecrated.
The artists saw the abandoned church as ‘inert, brooding and boarded up’. It was an ideal location for this project which has been in the works since 1990 after the artists’ first collaboration. The living internal skin brings life and a certain voice back to the church. When the light hits the grass through the plate glass windows it is as if the space is singing. On that note, the collaboration with Graeme Miller, whom Ackroyd & Harvey had worked with previously on other site-specific projects, sought to develop a sound element to the work which was ‘integral to the resonance of the space and the artwork’.
Courtesy of Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey with Graeme Miller
