The newest installation in the Kielder Art & Architecture programme is inviting visitors to contemplate time.
Timelapse, created by sculptor David Rickard, is a new feature on the Lakeside Way, on the south side of the Bull Crag peninsula.
Visitors can sit among the locally harvested timber that the structure is comprised of and take in the area’s timeless beauty.
The artist said: “The sculpture derives from the underlying materials that define Kielder Water & Forest Park: timber and time. With trees typically growing in Kielder Forest for several decades before harvest, the forest itself reflects various timespans through the scale of the trees in different plantations. This passage of time is also marked within the timber of individual trees.”
Texts from poet SJ Fowler are embedded in the floor and ceiling of the sculpture, subtly referencing the way gravity slows time, as first defined by Albert Einstein in 1907.
Kielder Art & Architecture Curator Peter Sharpe said: “A visitor’s first impression of the sculpture might be to mistake it for one of the large stacks of timber often seen alongside roads in the forest. But on closer inspection, this new stopping place and orientation for visitors enjoying the Lakeside Way reveals alternative ways of appreciating the structure’s complexity. On the one hand, it’s a carefully arranged mass of timber that encourages visitors to consider the temporality of the forest; on the other, it’s simply a place from which they can appreciate the sweeping view down the Whickhope inlet to the expanse of the main lake beyond.”
Timelapse was made possible thanks to public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England. It was made with support from Forestry England, as part of its centenary celebrations in 2019, and timber supplier A J Scott Ltd.
The Kielder Art & Architecture programme is led by the Kielder Water & Forest Park Development Trust, which comprises Northumbrian Water, Forestry England, Calvert Kielder, Northumberland County Council, Northumberland Wildlife Trust, Northumberland National Park Authority and Kielder Observatory Astronomical Society.
People can find out more about Timelapse and the wider Kielder Art & Architecture programme at: http://kielderartandarchitecture.com/art-architecture/timelapse.html
(Pic by Neil Denham)