Road to Nowhere

‘Land and the Samling', the second project in a three year Visual Arts Programme, brought together five professional artists: Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, Tanya Axford, Claire Barber, Matt Stokes and Wolfgang Weileder. Each artist received a commission to produce temporary artwork during a month-long residency at Keilder Forest in Northumberland. In turn they each mentored 12 A-level art students from across Tyne & Wear. In all sixty young people were involved in intensive residential workshops led by the artists in the forest.

The project began with a Symposium chaired by Matthew Collings who, at very short notice, replaced James Turrell as keynote speaker. He admirably set the scene for the project and was able to bring the disparate elements together.

“The dramatic landscape at Kielder, an artificial man-made forest and reservoir in a very remote area on the borders, has had a major impact on the making of Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva’s work. The valley itself, which has been flooded to create the reservoir, has left echoes of the former occupation. Road to Nowhere was inspired by the old road that connected the villages at the time before the flooding and now leads and disappears into the water of a silent inlet. In response to this ghostly place Elpida has created a floating surface out of cress – simulating a continuation of the road into the lake. The cress carpet that takes the shape of the road will grow and eventually disappear into the lake.”