John Newling Peterborough Soil
Peterborough Museum and art gallery (8 January - 21 February 2010)

About the Project

The redevelopment of Peterborough’s city centre is not just a cleaning of its environment; it is essentially a renewal of the commitment to the people who occupy its public realm. To this end John Ealing’s project seeks to generate phases of work that evolves through a series of transactions and transformations creating art works inclusive of the city of Peterborough and its natural environment.

Phase one of the project was the call for people of Peterborough to contribute images of Peterborough to a dedicated website. These photographs of places and events in Peterborough that hold a special memory were collected through a dedicated website and at the museum. Alongside of the images a short text, in relation to the image, was also submitted. These images formed the bulk of the content of the phase two of the project.

Phase two of the project was the collation and design of the received images into a newspaper. The Peterborough Soil newspaper will be widely distributed through out the city in parallel with the project’s installation. A proportion of the newspapers are to be used in phase three of the project.

Phase three of the project is an installation for Peterborough museum. The installation will house two industrial cages accommodating the processes of newspaper distribution and shredding whilst the other will contain a converted compost tumbler that will transform in the ratio of 80% paper to 20% vegetative the newspapers into soil.
This compost will be, both metaphorically and actually, a soil containing the images and texts of Peterborough submitted by people from Peterborough. The ‘living’ installation will house a number of experiments centred around compositional analysis of the constructed soil in order to determine at what point the soil can sustain plant life.

The concluding phase of the project will be the collection of the final soil produced and its insertion into five perforated cylindrical containers. Each of these containers will be placed into the root systems of five mature trees to be planted in St John’s Square. Newling wishes, albeit briefly, to conjoin our sense of place and memory within the complexity of the processes of decomposition that generates compost as nutriments in the soil.
Each tree will have within its carbon growth echoes of people’s response to places and memories from the city in which they will survive and thrive; an ecology of us, nature as a regenerative process.

‘Stamping Uncertainty’
Worcester Cathedral, The Chapter House
7-29 November 2009

Questions found in hymns:
exploring the nature of doubt and the struggle for faith

This installation in the Chapter House of Worcester Cathedral explores the questions which are asked in hymns. On the stone benches all around the Chapter House will be lecterns, one for each question that John Newling found, each of which testifies to our uncertainty. It explores the nature of doubt and the struggle for faith that is expressed in the Church’s hymn book.

Hymns are traditionally seen as proclamations of religious certainty, a vocal manifestation of complete faith. Newling, however, has concentrated on the surprising number of questions and doubts contained within them.

Each lectern contains a rubber stamp and ink pad; and a book containing one page with the question from one hymn stamped upon it. Stamping onto paper is normally seen as an expression of bureaucratic certainty, an absolute truth, thus by subverting their use Newling has succinctly created a metaphor for two thousand years of spiritual doubt.

Previously venued at Canterbury and Carlisle Cathedrals, amongst other places, it has been specially adapted for the Chapter House here at Worcester.

The Reverend Canon Dr Georgina Byrne, Residentiary Canon comments: “A living faith is a faith that is unafraid to ask difficult questions. From the agonised ‘why’ in the Psalms of the Old Testament through ‘doubting Thomas’ in the New Testament right up to the ethical dilemmas in our own time, Christians have always wrestled with matters of life and faith. This remarkable installation reveals some of the many questions embedded in our hymns, and in doing so reminds us that, even in the end, the very heart of our faith lies in the great mystery we call God.”

12:00am Wed, 16th Sep 2009 - 12:00am Sun, 18th Oct 2009

John Newling will be collecting and copying key documents relating to the different history of spaces adjacent to the River Trent and the industrial wastelands of Nottingham which have an emphasis on changing values and shifting architectural or ground use. This collection of documents will be shredded and transformed into soil. Using a laboratory provided by Bio City, the artist will then conduct a number of experiments. In this first phase of the project the laboratory will house a hydroponics system that endeavours to grow Beech trees.

Newling hopes to open up the ‘historic situation’ of material culture, evolving his project through a series of vital conversations between nature, environment and society.

In October 2008 John Newling conducted a survey with the Wellcome Collection to find out ‘What people do to make themselves feel better’. (See ‘Make a Piano in Spain project’). The findings were then reconfigured to present a poetic insight into 21st century self medication.

This year the information has been represented in the form of tabloid Newspaper. The subversive newspaper is being distributed for free in the busy commercial district on the Euston Road area of London and the Frieze Art fair.

Distribution will be on 14 - 15 October 2009.

The Noah Laboratory (constructing soil)

Venue:The Collection, Lincoln
Year: 2009
Commissioner: The Collection, Lincoln
Project Manager: Lesley Farrell (curator)
Mode: Installation
Commissioner: The Collection, Lincoln

Notes:

John Newling was Artist in Residence at The Collection Studio from January to April 2008. The Noah Laboratory is the final production process and installation of the project initiated during this period and developed throughout 2008. Over the course of a month the gallery will form the central distribution hub and recycling point for a newspaper containing the images and writings generated from the residency and will, through the installation, endeavour to transform the some of the papers into soil. This installation is the practical and conceptual completion of ‘The Noah Laboratory’ and brings it fully to a public audience both through the paper and the installation itself. It creates a dialogue between the sites of the residency, The Collection’s permanent exhibits and archives of geological artefacts and social history, and the contemporary art spaces and collections of the museum. From January to March 2008 Newling began to make notes on the ways and means we use to connect with our natural environment. Then, from March to September 2008 he gathered these notes and started to draw together some of the reflections. These notes and reflections eventually became the ‘From my garden’ essay that acts as a key text in the newspaper. The final phase of the Noah Laboratory configures a work that, actually and symbolically constructs a soil from both the essay ‘From My Garden’ and the images of the transactions. A core element of the soil is a newspaper that will be mainly distributed on the Lincoln High Street and on the train between Nottingham and Lincoln. A proportion of the papers are shredded and become a physical part of the soil that will be constructed in the gallery. In this manner, the text and images are both a reflection on the construction and meaning of such a soil and the principal component of it. The Noah laboratory endeavors to achieve this through the material transformations that happen within the installation.

The Noah Laboratory (constructing soil)

Venue: The Collection, Lincoln
Year: 2009
Commissioner:The Collection, Lincoln
Project Manager: Lesley Farrell (curator)
Mode: Installation
Commissioner: The Collection, Lincoln

Notes:

John Newling was Artist in Residence at The Collection Studio from January to April 2008. The Noah Laboratory is the final production process and installation of the project initiated during this period and developed throughout 2008. Over the course of a month the gallery will form the central distribution hub and recycling point for a newspaper containing the images and writings generated from the residency and will, through the installation, endeavour to transform the some of the papers into soil. This installation is the practical and conceptual completion of ‘The Noah Laboratory’ and brings it fully to a public audience both through the paper and the installation itself. It creates a dialogue between the sites of the residency, The Collection’s permanent exhibits and archives of geological artefacts and social history, and the contemporary art spaces and collections of the museum. From January to March 2008 Newling began to make notes on the ways and means we use to connect with our natural environment. Then, from March to September 2008 he gathered these notes and started to draw together some of the reflections. These notes and reflections eventually became the ‘From my garden’ essay that acts as a key text in the newspaper. The final phase of the Noah Laboratory configures a work that, actually and symbolically constructs a soil from both the essay ‘From My Garden’ and the images of the transactions. A core element of the soil is a newspaper that will be mainly distributed on the Lincoln High Street and on the train between Nottingham and Lincoln. A proportion of the papers are shredded and become a physical part of the soil that will be constructed in the gallery. In this manner, the text and images are both a reflection on the construction and meaning of such a soil and the principal component of it. The Noah laboratory endeavors to achieve this through the material transformations that happen within the installation.

Ark: Road Vines
Venue: Multiple Sites & Venues
Year: 2008
Commissioner: Ark: Road Vines (Feasibility Study) is supported by the Arts Council of England
Project Manager: Isabel Vasseur, Louise Francis and Laura Knight
Mode: Mobile Installation
Commissioner: Ark: Road Vines (Feasibility Study) is supported by the Arts Council of England

Notes:

In April 2008 a new company, ‘Ark Lab’, was set up in order to establish a comprehensive feasibility study of John Newling’s proposed project, Ark: Road Vines. Ark Lab will disseminate information on this project at regular intervals throughout the coming months as the project moves from proposal to realisation. Ark: Road Vines will create the first ever mobile hydroponic vine yard; visiting particular and bringing itself into the local context, generating a relationship of questions and experiences. Ark: Road Vines will house a space that unfolds to become a laboratory, workshop and seminar space. It will archive all its transactions; collecting evidence of discussions, ideas and ensuing artworks. Ark: Road Vines is a major art project that is a living, moving entity that gathers and gains knowledge whilst being a spectacular visual icon within that landscape. Contact: e-mail office@arklab.co.uk For further information visit www.francisknight.co.uk.

Event 3. The Knowledge Meal

Venue: Preston Market. 27th June
Year: 2007
Commissioner: (Here + Now) as part of the (In Certain Places) initiative
Project Manager: Elaine Speight , Charles Quick and Kerenza Hines
Mode: Installation -event
Commissioner: (Here + Now) as part of the (In Certain Places) initiative

Notes:

Retracing the path configured in the ‘voicing mysteries’ Newling will construct a white linen clad continuous table that will form the physical structure for the Preston Market Mysteries Meal. The table itself materially reconfigures or alludes to the prior use of the market furniture in the Insurance Stall event. Through the analysis of the 280 mysteries, evident as ‘propositions’ on www.lossofmystery.com, specific contacts will be made with individuals whose mystery seems to stand out as particularly incomprehensible to reason and self evidently intriguing. These individuals will be invited to the meal. Prior to this invitation the group will have been involved in a correspondence about the particularities of their mystery. It is estimated that approximately 30-40 people will attend this event. The meal will be publicly viewable from a roped space that will act as a boundary to the event. The meal will be both elegant and visually beautiful starting in the early evening. The table dressing, food preparation and cooking will happen in public view, within the boundary of the event. Whilst the meal is seen as a celebration of the market place and the project participants it is also viewed as a related but autonomous event. ‘The Meal’ seeks to engage in conversations that view new knowledge through the prior events. In this manner it is ‘Knowledge’ gained as a post liminal event.

An Essential Disorientation

Year: 2007
Commissioner: S.A.R.P. Poland (Polish equivalent of R.I.B.A.)
Mode: Commissioned book.
Commissioner: S.A.R.P. Poland (Polish equivalent of R.I.B.A.)
Notes:

This project evolved over an 18 month period and is an extensive essay that attempts to link contemporary arts practice to notions of the sacred. The essay contextualizes the sacred in many aspects of our condition and situation. It deploys the anthropological method of the liminal structure by way of making connections. The book is fully illustrated with prior project that, have consciously or not, been sub-structured by the liminal. The book also has a fine contextualizing forward by Richard Davey titled ‘Charting the Liminal.’

The essay begins…At a time when many ideologies have all but blown themselves out; when meaning seems to have become meaningless in a strangely nihilistic void; when, in our sophistication, we find as our ancestors did that we are fearful of the unpredictability of nature; when knowledge as causality seems to become increasingly predetermined; it seems appropriate to review the relationship we have with nature as a sacred process

For further information on purchasing see the publication section.

Stamping Uncertainty at the Cathedral Fratry

Venue: The Cathedral Fratry, Carlisle Cathedral
Year: 2006
Commissioner: Originally Canterbury Cathedral, Additional support for the Carlisle Installation given by, Carlisle Cathedral Tullie House Carlisle City Council Arts Council England
Project Manager: Very Reverend Mark Boyling, Dean of Carlisle Cathedral
Mode: Temporary Installation
Commissioner: Originally Canterbury Cathedral, Additional support for the Carlisle Installation given by, Carlisle Cathedral Tullie House Carlisle City Council Arts Council England

Notes:

In 2005 the Dean of Carlisle Cathedral wrote to me asking if I could install Stamping Uncertainty in the Cathedral Fratry. I travelled to Carlisle to see the space. The Fratry turned out to be an extraordinary space that housed a library of theological texts. The context of the site, the site itself and the relationship to Stamping Uncertainty interested me greatly.

The project was installed by, Andy Love, Philip Young, John Newling and Paula Love

All images by Paula Love