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Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery) Humanitas Visiting Professorships in Contemporary Art European Live Art Archive John Gerrard: Exercise (Djibouti) 2012 The Elements of Drawing: John Ruskin’s Teaching Collections at Oxford Gabriela Albergaria: hither and thitherSimon Callery: Segsbury Project
In 1996 Simon Callery was given an opportunity to work alongside archaeologists from the University of Oxford who had recently begun excavating prehistoric and Romano-British sites on the Ridgeway, a chalk downland in central southern England and one of the oldest trackways in Europe. Nobody at the time, least of all the artist himself, expected the association to flourish in quite the way it did, and for seven years Oxford’s archaeologists invited Callery to accompany them on three major digs.
The artist’s residencies at Segsbury Camp, Alfred’s Castle and Marcham-Frilford took place under the aegis of the Hillforts of the Ridgeway Project. The ever-increasing accumulation of photographs, sculptures and canvases made a significant contribution to the continuing debate about the changing function of archaeology, landscape and place as points of departure for contemporary artistic activity, and led to major exhibitions at Great Coxwell Tithe Barn, Dover Castle and the Storey Institute in Lancaster. The accompanying book featured contributions from the critic Michael Archer, the novelist Tracy Chevalier and David Miles, Chief Archaeologist at English Heritage.
Commissioned by the Ruskin School of Art in collaboration with the School of Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum and Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and supported by funding from Arts Council England, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, English Heritage, Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects, The National Trust, Oxford Exhibition Services and Southern Arts.
