Art+Archaeology

Shovel Down Project

Shovel Down Project was a collaborative project between visual artist Varvara Shavrova, archaeologist Helen Wickstead and the archaeological team working on Shovel Down bronze-age site in Dartmoor National Park. The purpose of Shovel Down Art Project was to establish connections between archaeological drawing and artistic drawing, to create a platform for inter-disciplinary collaborations between artist and archaeologists.

Drawing is an essential practice both for artists and archaeologists working with landscape. Although the process of archaeological drawing has been strictly standardised, and artists drawing is fundamentally based on the artists personal response to landscape, both artists and archaeologists are essentially producing individual and thus to a degree subjective interpretations of landscape. Developing understanding of the process of drawing as a way of interpreting landscape, exchanging of drawing skills and methodologies between the artist and archaeological team, and facilitating the wider understanding of archaeological processes were all essential components of this project.

During the Residency Shavrova and Wickstead coordinated a series of educational events, including sketchbook drawing projects with archaeologists, students, local volunteers and school children. Shavrova coordinated a drawing event on site involving the entire archaeological team, invited archaeologists and students to draw in their sketchbooks and, using different drawing materials and techniques, to explore different ways of responding to landscape and archaeology around them, whilst Wickstead explained the rules of archaeological drawing and demonstrated archaeological recording. The collaborations included joint drawing sessions between Shavrova and archaeologists, when archaeologists swapped the drawing methodologies with the artist. Using the regular archaeological drawing tools, the archaeologists were invited to create non-restricted interpretations of their site and landscape in general.

At Shovel Down, Shavrova observed archaeologists in the process of excavation and produced drawings, photographs and installations, documenting the changes occurring in the landscape as the excavation developed, responding to those alterations and changes through her work. ‘Four Interferences’, a series of site-specific installations utilising archaeological trenches and using archaeological tools were created by Shavrova in collaboration with archaeologists on site. The installations were documented by local photographer Chris Chapman and are represented in a series of four large colour photographs. New works - large-scale graphite ‘Trench’ drawings on archaeological permatrace and based on Shovel Down excavation plans - were commissioned by Shovel Down and produced by Shavrova following the residency.

Shovel Down Project Photography by Chris Chapman and Varvara Shavrova.