Drawing from the Past by Simon Mills
It is a cold, damp, early morning on Salisbury Plain. Stonehenge's ancient trilithons loom out of the mist, the predawn light struggling weakly to escape their vast mass. A figure approaches, hooded and robed in white. It pauses briefly at the perimeter of the stones, and then enters. Another, smaller, cloaked figure enters from the opposite side of the Henge. Meeting at the centre of the circle, the figures, still swathed in their cloaks against the cold and rain, turn to face one of the inner stones. Together, they move their hands in a synchronised, rhythmic motion, occasionally stepping forward and back, in time to some hidden beat. After some minutes the dance ends, and the figures leave the circle, swallowed by the morning mist.
A few minutes later, artists Pil and Galia Kollectiv emerge from the stone circle, attempting to shelter a (relatively) ancient looking VHS video camera from the rain. Following them are two performance artists, still struggling out of their soaking robes. Rather than witnessing some arcane druid ceremony, we had just watched the filming of a video art piece, created as part of the Artists in Archaeology residency at the 2008 Stonehenge Riverside Project.
Artists perform Pil and Galia Kollectiv's video piece at Stonehenge in 2008.
Founded in 2003, Artists in Archaeology is an ongoing project researching the connections between artistic and archaeological practice. The initial aims of the project were to investigate the relationship between archaeological and artistic drawing practices. Despite technologies such as Geophysical and satellite mapping, archaeological field drawing is still an extremely important part of the excavation process. As Artists in Archaeology project co-ordinator Dr Helen Wickstead says
Archaeological drawings contain their own language. Drawing makes the archaeologist interpret in ways that photography cannot. Each drawing had been carefully staged by the drama of the excavation. Without the drawing, I realised, it would have been difficult to dig in the right way. This is what drawing does for archaeologists.
This investigation led to a collaborative project between visual artist Varvara Shavrova and the archaeological team working on the Shovel Down Bronze Age site in the Dartmoor National Park. Running from 2003 to 2005, the residency allowed Shavrova and the archaeological team to share their different drawing skills, methodologies and processes for using drawing as a method of interpreting the landscape.
In 2007, Artists in Archaeology were invited to collaborate on the Stonehenge Riverside Project. The Riverside project is a joint excavation between five British universities aiming to unravel the development of the prehistoric landscape around Stonehenge.
The Stonehenge landscape includes two henges: Stonehenge, with its stone settings and avenue, and Durrington Walls, a timber henge with its own roadway linking it to the River Avon. Archaeologists consider Stonehenge and Durrington to be two complimentary ends of a single structure, a massive routeway which encompasses the landscape. This structure was built within a landscape already marked by an earlier prehistoric feature; the Stonehenge Cursus, a mysterious mile long earthwork, dated at around 3500 BC.
Archaeologists carry out a geophysical survey on the Avenue approaching Stonehenge
Artists, from Romantics like Constable and Turner, to Modernists like Henry Moore, have long been fascinated with Stonehenge. Visual representations of Stonehenge have been found dating as far back as 1340, and the very earliest drawings from this landscape are inscribed on neolithic chalk plaques. There could not be a more perfect environment for archaeologists and artists to interact.
The first year's residency saw six artists document and work alongside the archaeological excavations at Stonehenge. Each artist had explored archaeological or historical themes using some form of drawing technique in previous works. This ranged from the large-scale, live drawings performed by Mark Anstee, Rebecca Davies layered light box drawings to Julia Midgley's more traditional documentative and observational drawings and Leo Duff's illustrative exploration of the displacement of stone in the construction and destruction of buildings.
In 2008, several of the artists returned to the field to continue their work at the Stonehenge Riverside Project. They were joined by project newcomers Pil and Galia Kollectiv and Simon Callery. In contrast to the previous year's focus on drawing, Pil and Galia's work is primarily based around film, video and performance art. The scenes filmed within Stonehenge are part of a sequence exploring the relationship between science, work and ritual, with the huge sarcens of Stonehenge acting as a giant musical instrument, played like a theremin by the robed disciples.
Whilst there are no excavations at Stonehenge in 2009, the Artists in Archaeology contributors will be busy in their studios developing their ideas from their time in the field. An exhibition of work from the 2007 residency has already been held at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester with a much larger touring exhibition planned for the future. As much as archaeology can only reveal snapshots in time, the work produced by the project captures and suspends moments, both from the present and extending back into the past. Whilst both art and archaeology are subject to interpretation and personal opinions, when combined they can uncover new and unexpected viewpoints, resulting in a fresh perspective of our past and heritage.
Simon Callery's drawing equipment at the Stonehenge Cursus excavation site.
Simon Mills documented the 2008 Artists in Archaeology residency at the Stonehenge Riverside Project. More photos from the project can be seen on his personal website.