At the end of May, 2018 the artist and writer Sarah Gillett delivered a workshop at Fermynwoods Contemporary Art.
‘Parts Unknown’ attempted to bring the stars down into Fermyn Woods County Park in Northamptonshire, allowing participants to discover the mysterious and infinite through shadow and illumination.
At dusk we walked into the forest with reflective materials and torches, plotting the night sky through the trees.
Sarah asked Luke to document the constellations that we made in the forest at night.
In October 2019 Sarah and Luke travelled again to the forest in order to revisit and build on the previous year’s work.
Images from the series are shown below (click to view image at full size / original format).
ABOUT SARAH GILLETT
Sarah Gillett investigates the life of things across space and time. She is a UK-based artist, writer and Royal College of Art MA Printmaking (2015) alumna. Her practice explores histories of belief, ritual and storytelling in order to question our place in the universe today.
Using her own collection of fossils, artefacts, gothic oddities and geological specimens as a starting point, Sarah’s work takes many forms including performance, writing, installation, collage and works on paper but always investigates a subject from multiple angles – from colour and form to cautionary tales and space exploration.
Often engaging with others, her projects involve a process of focused research and close collaboration. Most recently she has worked with astrophysicists, fly fishers, private detectives, hot air balloonists, neuroscientists and weavers.
Her resulting work on meteorite strikes, blind boxers, gold rings and ships-in-bottles speaks of doomed love, human fallibility and the eternal search for the meaning of life.
Website: sarahgillett.com
Instagram: @inkystudio
ABOUT LUKE HARBY
Luke Harby (b. 1972) is an artist who works solely with photographic film.
His work attempts to explore the nature of photography itself. It engages with the act of photographic production and reproduction; the fact (or fiction) that photography is merely representation; and that all photographic images are illusory.
Given this dogma he enjoys the act of manipulating the subject, using tricks of scale, displacing or adjusting the context, or by vandalising the image in some way in order to rephotograph it.
Recent work has been shown with Light Leaked, Editions l’Heliotrope, Aint-Bad, Hand Magazine, Humble Arts Foundation, Noice Magazine, Streitlab, Float Magazine and Lumen London. In 2018 he completed two residencies. He lives and works in Northampton, UK.
Website: slackwise.org.uk
Instagram: @lukeharby
CREDITS
Unless otherwise stated, all words and images in this article are © Sarah Gillett & Luke Harby
