…
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion
T.S. Eliot’s poem East Coker
MARCIA TEUSINK Detail of Botanical map
Welcome to Od Arts Festival 2023: Still and still moving.
Taking the title for this year’s festival from T.S. Eliot’s poem East Coker (as quoted to the left), we began thinking about themes of movement and exploration – in relation to the rich histories of the Coker villages, with their connections to the sail cloth industries, trade, smuggling and sadly and inextricably to slavery – and in relation to village life, to the importance of footpaths and desire lines, issues of boundaries and travel, and to the growing potential for understanding how very localised issues are echoed in the experiences of communities elsewhere in the world.
It turns out the odd thing about movement, as a concept, is that when you start to look closely at almost anything, no matter how still it appears to be at first, you eventually start to perceive motion: stories and histories evolve and sometimes need to be reclaimed or reframed; plants, humans and animals continually grow, age and migrate; geology is formed and eroded; and even molecules vibrate.
So we invite you to join us to explore just some of the different ways we navigate, move in, and connect to the world around us – from ancient way-making and international trade history to virtual journeys into imagined futures.
With work by twenty-three amazing artists included in the festival line up, you can expect to find intriguing art in unusual locations across the two villages, and online. You are also invited to join our daily programme of workshops, walks and performances with activities including quiet observation and careful listening, drawing, bookbinding, monument making, yoga and pottery. Meander at your own pace or join others to make, walk and dance your way around the festival.
We hope you enjoy the festival
Simon, Chantelle, Cat and the rest of the Od Arts Festival team
Information on artists and art works is organised according to the venue they appear in. Where an artist has work in more than one venue, you’ll find they are listed twice. If you are loking out for work by a particular artist you’ll also find a quick guide inside the back cover.
The festival map is in the centrefold of the guide - which we hope makes it easy to find and refer back to.
The programme of events, workshops and activities can be found on pages 25, 26, 27 and 28 towards the end of the guide. If booking is required for a workshop or event visit www.odartsfestival.co.uk
Visitors with mobility impairments: Some venues have limited access and uneven ground. Please contact us ahead of your visit if you require any assistance or further information: 07967756320 / 01935
862201 email: info@odartsfestival.co.uk
Audio descriptions: Most artworks will have audio descriptions for which you will need your smart phone to scan the QR code.
Visitors with visual impairments: Please mention to one of our volunteers if you would like an artwork verbally described to you.
Festival Hub: Based at OSR Projects, West Coker. All art festival information and changes to events etc. will be signposted here.
Stay the night: We have a list of recommendations. Visit: www.odartsfestival.co.uk/plan-your-visit
Food and drink: We have some lovely pubs and The Village Café offers a yummy selection of sandwiches and cakes. Visit: www.odartsfestival.co.uk/plan-your-visit for opening hours. We also have My greek fat wraps food stall with us Saturday and Sunday at Dawe’s Twineworks.
Volunteers: We have a lovely bunch of Od Arts Festival Volunteers, who are here to help. If you have any questions please ask them - you can spot them in their festival t-shirts!
So you don’t miss what else we have going on please subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on, social media: @odartsfest and @osrprojects.
Getting here: East Coker and West Coker can be reached by public transport.
Train: The nearest train stations are Yeovil Pen Mill and Yeovil Junction, with regular trains arriving from London, Exeter, Plymouth and Bristol. These stations are a 30 minute cycle or 15 minute taxi ride from either village.
Bus: Buses from/to Yeovil. Buses 56 and 96, see: bustimes.org for further information.
Walking: We encourage you to walk around the festival if possible. Why not put on your walking boots and explore our beautiful footpaths?
Cycling: Bring your own bicycle! East and West Coker can be reached via National Cycle Route 26 and the South Somerset Routes. Further information visit Sustrans website.
Driving: If traveling by car you can park in West Coker at St Martins Church car park or West Coker Village Hall; and for East Coker park at the Glebe Field near Coker Court. There is limited on-street parking in both villages. Please do park safely and respect all of our neighbours.
Additionally there is limited parking (unreserved) for people with mobility impairments at Coker Court, East Coker, and at Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker.
Taxi: Our recommended local taxis are Yeovil-based Radio Cabs 01935 426666
This year we are fortunate to partner with Cycling Without Age, offering free trishaw rides for older people and people with disabilities to venues in the Cokers. To book a ride between venues visit www.odartsfestival.co.uk
Workshop and publication
Twisting Heads
Participate in a special bookbinding workshop at Dawe’s Twineworks or pick up a copy of Caitlin’s newly commissioned publication, entitled Twisting Heads.
Spooling, twisting, braiding, twine walk, twisting heads, fast and loose – the process and machinery used in traditional twine making has a unique language that evokes movement. Taking this as a starting point Caitlin’s workshops will provide an opportunity to enjoy slow and productive movement, and to reflect on the industrial history of the Twineworks while binding. Her booklet invites its readers to follow a series of simple exercises in movement, twisting and twine walking.
Caitlin Akers works with artist books, printmaking and installation, exploring place, history, poetry and language. Her work often involves workshops in hand made processes, sharing skills to foster community and conversation through making.
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker
Sat 27 May, 2 - 4.30pm
Booking required see pg 27
WILL CRUICKSHANK
Methods 2016-2023
The process of making is fundamentally important to Will Cruickshank’s sculptural works. He devises his own complex, makeshift machines by repurposing parts from old cement mixers, bicycles, chainsaws and potters’ wheels. Most often these machines spool, wind, bind and overlay layers of yarn, in a way reminiscent of traditional industries like twinemaking, but here employed in the creation of objects with a primarily aesthetic and symbolic purpose.
Will Cruickshank has a multidisciplinary practice which often places an importance on colour, pattern and symmetry, whilst appearing to be connected to something unknown and sacred. His work is grounded in learning by doing, and thinking through making.
You can also see sculptures made by Will Cruickshank at The Cemetery Chapel, East Coker.
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker
Film duration: 7 mins 15 secs
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
The Valley
A film essay that uses Dale, a small place on the west coast of Norway, as a prism to look at global changes related to production and economy. The main industry in Dale was a textile factory, but production has moved to Pakistan, and the factory building now houses a server farm mining bitcoin. Labour forces are in flux as industry moves to lower -cost places, water runs through pipelines to provide electricity, and data flows through cables, adding to financial profits and speculation: capital is global and in constant motion.
Stine Gonsholt and Åse Løvgren are artists and filmmakers living and working in Norway. They have collaborated since 2017, exploring the effects of global changes on local landscapes. Their work focuses on transitions related to production and technology, and how such processes leave their mark on the environment and alter our understanding of a place.
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker
Film duration: 20 mins
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Flo(ra)tilla: A Natural and Not Very Natural History
An installation exploring plants on the move. Plants and trees made huge historic sailing journeys possible, and voyages around the globe led to the unprecedented movement of plants. In its production of flax twine, for the sail cloth industries, Dawe’s Twineworks played its part in this story.
At the beginning of the festival there will be a procession of Marcia’s works from OSR Projects to their final setting at Dawe’s Twineworks.
Marcia Teusink’s work explores climate change, collapsing environments and regrowth through painting, sculpture, video, printmaking and mixed media. Her recent projects look at the historical movement of plants – both the wonder of the range of plant species in the world and the problematic ecological effects of their unnatural redistribution. Marcia has also organised a plant exchange and two drawing workshops. See pg 25-28 for booking details.
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Performance
Seaweed in the Fruit Locker is an LGBTQIA+ sea shanty choir formed by artist Rhys Morgan, exploring queer motifs within seafaring history and collective performance in marginalised communities through the tradition of shanty singing. The choir have used their lived experience to rework existing shanties and inspire new ones, continuing the tradition of these hybrid folk songs being adapted time and again through generations and across cultures.
Rhys Morgan is an artist and producer. His work often explores ideas around information and power structures and how these interact with queer life.
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker
Sun 28 May, 12pm Lunchtime
This film follows the artist through the woods in search of ‘Daniel’, who was buried in a Gloucestershire village in 1719 and described, in a transcript found in Gloucester Archives, as ‘a black stranger’. Whilst walking, Dan talks directly to Daniel, speculating about the parallels between him and his namesake, and about how he’s been made to feel like a ‘black stranger’ in his home town of Stroud.
Dan Guthrie is an artist, researcher and writer whose practice often explores representations of Black Britishness, with an interest in examining how they manifest themselves in rural areas.
Credit: black strangers (2022), dir. Dan Guthrie
2. Village Hall, West Coker
‘Right of Way’ 34 mins in total black strangers: 11 mins 20 secs
Syncopated Green: 8 mins
Pastoral Malaise: 14 mins
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Syncopated Green
Reflecting on the history of outdoor free parties in the English countryside, Arjuna Neuma uses rave music, past and present, to help forget the ‘official’ portrayal of England as picturesque, nostalgic, white, and rural. Somewhere between a music video, a memoir and an essay, Syncopated Green turns imperial history inside out and asks: how might our future be different if we had other histories to lean on – and dance with?
Arjuna Neuman was born on an aeroplane: that’s why he has two passports. He is an artist, filmmaker and writer.
Credit: Syncopated Green (2022), dir. Arjuna Neuman
UFUOMA ESSI
Pastoral Malaise
A short film about the absences within rural pastoral environments, often framed by romanticism and picturesque conventions, constructed as tourist sites and refuges in rural landscapes across Britain.
Ufuoma Essi is a filmmaker and artist whose work spans film, moving image, photography and sound. Using the archive as an essential medium, her work revolves around Black feminist epistemology and the configuration of displaced histories, with the aim of interrogating and disrupting the silences and gaps of political and historical narratives.
Credit: Pastoral Malaise (2022), dir Ufuoma Essi
The works on show at the Village Hall are presented as part of ‘Right of Way’ a programme of artists’ films, commissioned in 2022 by the Independent Cinema Office and LUX (the UK agency for the support and promotion of artists working with the moving image). They are part of a wider programme, including archive footage, that aims to provide a bigger picture of questions of access and inclusion in the UK countryside. The commissions were supported by the BFI Film Audience Network and Arts Council England. www.rightofwaytour.org.uk
Sculpture and performance
NICOLA TURNER WITH CLARE WHISTLER
Echoed Ecstasy
Two site-specific sculptural installations have been created for the festival, one in each village. Nicola’s works combine found objects that hold traces of memory, the shapes of living forms and materials from organic ‘dead’ matter such as horsehair –a material traditionally used for bedding and furniture and, in that regard, alive with history and memory. On Saturday, collaborative artist and performer, Clare Whistler, will make her own response to the sculpture at The Pound, West Coker in the form of movement.
Nicola Turner’s practice investigates the dissolution of boundaries, liminal states, and the continuous exchange of ecosystems. Clare Whistler is an interdisciplinary artist who works with performance, site, poetry, music, visual art and communities. Movement and gesture infuse all her work.
3. The Pound, Chur Lane, West Coker Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
See our events listings for more details pg 25 and 26
Plutons
These ceramic sculptures play with ideas of gravity and mass, slumping, solid heaviness of form, oozing glazes capturing movement frozen in material. The Plutons take their name from the term for the indeterminate bulbous masses of magma that form beneath volcanoes.
Dean Coates is a qualified geologist and has a background in brick manufacturing, education and studio ceramics. He is interested in the journey and changing states of geological matter. How they are created, altered, transported, deposited and extracted. The story of deep time spanning millions of years.
4. OSR Projects, West Coker Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
TRACY HILL
State of Being Porous and Veins of Transmission
Tracy Hill’s drawings reflect on experiences of walking through landscape – exploring the human body’s capacity to sense almost imperceptible material forces, vibrations and energies in the world.
Two parts of Tracy’s research project ‘Porosity’ are being shown together at OSR Projects: a series of lithographic prints, along with temporary drawings created by dropping water and tusche (ink) onto a ground lithographic stone. As the tusche dries on the stones, at a speed dictated by the warmth of the day, subtle air movements and changes in the atmosphere are captured on the stone surface.
Tracy Hill’s work explores how transdisciplinary engagement can offer new ideas and ways of seeing landscapes. Her practice connects the act of walking, beliefs and processes of performative drawing and hand-printing.
Co-selected by AirSpace Gallery.
4. OSR Projects, West Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Sculpture
TOM SEWELL
Anti (23) Idol for Eris
A temporary assemblage of found, natural and human-made materials, which will be dismantled after the festival – the objects discarded, lost or re-used in other works, or returned to their point of finding, to resume their place in cycles of decay.
Tom Sewell works across sculpture, drawing, installation, print, performance, photography and writing. His practice investigates human relationships with nature, using research into (pre)history, mythology, language, landscape and life to open up the porous border between nature and culture, questioning that dualism and exploring how it shifts through time and space.
Co-selected by Hogchester Arts.
Tom will lead a circle-building workshop on Saturday 26, opening up the processes of his practice for anyone to try. See our events listings for more details on pg 26 - Booking required.
4. OSR Projects, West Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Concrete
This short film brings together images of naturally occurring calcified architectural forms including heart urchin shells and aquatic worm husks, alongside decommissioned modernist architecture and archival footage of seismic research, all in an endless loop of construction and disintegration.
Nastassja Simensky is an artist who often works collaboratively to make writing, placespecific performances, events, sound work and films as a form of ongoing fieldwork. Nastassja coordinates the Archaeology Heritage Art Research Network.
Co-selected by Primary.
4. OSR Projects, West Coker
Film duration: 7 mins
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
and drawing
MARCIA TEUSINK
Herbaria and Botanical map
A series of paintings based on historic herbaria, which are dried plant specimens pinned to sheets of paper, used by botanists to study plants. Marcia is fascinated by the idea of separating and flattening nature to understand and organise it, but also the care and close observation given by the scientists.
Drawn with bleach on linen this large wall hanging has its origins in the idea of cartography as domination, but here the botanical map is old and battered and failing apart, a reference to colonialism and the current climate situation.
Marcia Teusink’s work explores climate change, collapsing environments and regrowth through painting, sculpture, video, printmaking and mixed media.
More work by Marcia is on show at Dawe’s Twineworks along with a series of events See our events listings for more details, pg 25 - 28
4. OSR Projects, West Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
The Owler’s Cloak represents a poor man’s fleece, made from pieces of sheep wool found in fields adjacent to the sea. Owling was a term for the smuggling of sheep or wool, and Owlers were so named because they operated at night. English fleeces were highly prized on the continent but between 1614 and 1825 the export of wool was forbidden. On beaches adjacent to sheep fields, smugglers loading goods at night would wear fleeces: if excise men came, the smugglers crouched down and pretended, in the dark, to be sheep and blend in with the flock.
Sara Trillo’s recent work explores lost landscape features and vanished settlements: spaces that have been coastally eroded, ploughed up, built over, or which have simply become overgrown and forgotten.
Co-selected by Extra Ordinary People at East Side Projects.
4. OSR Projects
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Sara will lead two walks setting out from The Village Café, East Coker on Saturday and Sunday, and has worked with Simon Lee Dicker to produce Something to hold onto, a Community Clay project run by pupils from Perrott Hill and East Coker Schools.
For more details on Something to hold onto see pg 25 and for the walks pg 27 and 28 –Booking required.
LAURA HOPES
Cuckoo
You are invited to enter this specially constructed bird hide, and take a moment to step away from other festival goers, to anonymously survey the scene beyond and to listen.
Throughout the world, the cuckoos’ lengthy migrations herald the arrival of spring. Famous for laying their eggs in the nests of other smaller birds, they provide an apt metaphor for the asymmetry between the global rich, their fellow humans, and their more-than-human kin.
Laura Hopes is an artist and researcher working with installation, sculpture, sound and film to generate playful interventions to illuminate terrifying themes.
Co-selected by CAMP.
5. The Orchard, East Close, West Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Sculpture
TOM SEWELL
Circles
Two collaboratively made circles, inspired by the prehistoric stone and timber circles of the Atlantic archipelago and their history of communal construction, and intended to echo the relationship between the two villages of East and West Coker.
The first circle will be made by school children on Friday. Anyone interested in making the second is invited to join Tom’s workshop on Saturday – booking required see pg 26.
Tom Sewell works across sculpture, drawing, installation, print, performance, photography and writing. His practice investigates human relationships with nature, using research into (pre)history, mythology, language, landscape and life to open up the porous border between nature and culture.
5. The Orchard, East Close, West Coker
Sat 27 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
The Great Curdling
A folk-sci-fi film, this darkly comic musical explores the feeling of a reality at tipping point. Although the sea is dying, it’s spawning a new kind of life – creatures that are half-cartoon, in the form of tiny flexing hands. They teach women how to re-format the colonised, curdled bodies of the dead into a new substance.
Jennet Thomas makes films, performances and installations exploring connections between fantasy, ideology and everyday life. Often darkly comic and absurd, they collide genres and explore collective constructions of meaning.
Co-selected by More Than Ponies.
JACK YOUNG
Writer and participatory artist Jack Young will be spending the festival developing a new piece of writing in response to the local landscape, its people, histories, and morethan-human life. The commission will also be developed through a critical and poetic response to T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (from which the festival takes its name), exploring its history, ideas and complications. The resulting writing will be developed into a publication following the festival. Expect: folk-horror, experimental poetry, bricolage, queer ecologies, human/more-than-human metamorphoses and more!
Film duration: 24 mins 30 seconds (film starts on the half hour)
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Jack Young writes experimental work with a focus on queer ecologies. He also works with young people using arts-based critical pedagogy, with a particular emphasis on multilingual filmmaking, applied theatre and creative writing.
Co-selected by Spike Island Associates.
Sculpture
WILL CRUICKSHANK
Plaster and thread works
The process of making is fundamentally important to Will Cruickshank’s sculptural works. He devises his own complex, makeshift machines, by repurposing parts from old cement mixers, bicycles, chainsaws and potters’ wheels. Most often these machines spool, wind, bind and overlay layers of yarn. But in the case of pieces on show here, the process is somewhat reversed, with the full force of pressurised water employed to shape spinning plaster objects revealing layers of thread embedded within. The resulting collection of works are mostly vessels, with a votive or ceremonial air – suggestive of both the water and the industrial technologies that formed them.
Will Cruickshank has a multidisciplinary practice which often places an importance on colour, pattern and symmetry. His works are grounded in learning by doing, and thinking through making.
Video documentation of Will’s processes is on show at Dawe’s Twineworks.
Film
ELAINE WONG
Reflecting a shift (Barreiro – Terreiro do Paço)
Projecting movement into space, Elaine Wong’s subtle interventions exist in corners and cracks, suggesting slippage into another time or place. The fluctuations of light are in fact small windows onto the motion of bodies of water. They are part of an ongoing attempt by the artist to unravel her own explorations of daily life and encounters with the world around her.
Elaine Wong works with videography, sound and installations. She is interested in the experiential quality of work. Her practice explores and unveils experiences of everyday encounters and inner conditions.
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Fri
Sculpture and performance
NICOLA TURNER WITH CLARE WHISTLER
Echoed Ecstasy
Two site-specific sculptural installations have been created for the festival, one in each village. Nicola’s works combine found objects that hold traces of memory, the shapes of living forms and materials from organic ‘dead’ matter such as horsehair –a material traditionally used for bedding and furniture and, in that regard, alive with history and memory. On Friday evening collaborative artist and performer, Clare Whistler will make her own response to the sculpture at Coker Court, in the form of movement.
Nicola Turner’s practice investigates the dissolution of boundaries, liminal states, and the continuous exchange of ecosystems.
Clare Whistler is an interdisciplinary artist who works with performance, poetry, music, visual art, site, landscape and communities. Movement and gesture infuse all her work.
9. Coker Court, East Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
See our events listings for more details
pg 25 and 26
Sculpture
ELLA WEST
Becoming Geologic (Third Form)
A sculptural installation of fictive paper objects, designed to mimic rock forms. The rocks are connected to a low-fi geological ‘life support machine’, evocative of midtwentieth-century ideas of the future, transforming them into slowly breathing masses. Ella’s work explores the fragility and temporality that exists even with seemingly solid and static natural forms with a wry humour and a nod to the fallibility of human attempts to interfere with imperfect technology.
Ella West’s multidisciplinary practice engages with the relationship between human and geological timelines, using this as an artistic framework to address themes of ecology, family, collaboration and home. She creates installations that combine varying elements of sculpture, video and printmaking.
9. Coker Court, East Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Tyrrau Mawr
This moving image installation takes as its starting point the tradition of Welsh landscape painting. Created using the visual effects technique of ‘matte painting’ the mountainous terrain of North Wales appears in disconcertingly sharp digital quality and becomes the location for a futuristic mega city. As the cityscape changes from night to day, a voiceover, written and narrated by the artist, tells the story of the inhabitants of this brave new world.
Bedwyr Williams uses multimedia, performance and text to explore the friction between the deadly serious and the banal aspects of modern life. He often draws on his own autobiographic existence merging art and life with a comedic – and frequently satirical – twist, his work is instantaneously sympathetic and relational.
9. Coker Court, East Coker
Film duration: 20 mins
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
Audio and performance
OWEN LLOYD AND ELEANOR DUFFIN
A Grounding
An invitation to lie down and think slowly, at a geological pace. Originally created as an imagining of the substrata in St Ives and Carbis Bay, Cornwall, A Grounding is a spoken text which aims to evoke a dreamlike state, and provoke you to imagine your own journey to those locations or a place familiar to you.
Eleanor Duffin is a visual artist, whose practice explores; the role of verbal and textbased language in the process of making; the relationship between the female body and traditional sculptural materials; and the nature of co-working with both human and nonhuman entities.
Owen Lloyd is a composer, sound artist, designer and researcher with a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration that integrates art, science and technology.
There will be a live reading of the work on Friday evening. See our events listings for more details pg 25
10. St Michael and All Angels, East Coker
Fri 26 - Sun 28 May, 10am - 5:30pm
(Closed for a service until 1.30pm on Sunday)
R u s t i c b a r o n a r e a l w o r k i n g f a r m s e r v i n g b e a u t i f u l l y b l e n d e d c i d e r F r o m p i p t o p i n t , a l l t h e a p p l e s a r e g r o w n i n o u r o r c h a r d s W e a r e f a m i l y a n d d o g f r i e n d l y a n d h a v e p l e n t y o f o u t s i d e c o v e r e d s e a t i n g a s w e l l a s t a b l e s i n s i d e t h e b a r w i t h l o g b u r n e r f o r t h o s e c o l d e r n i g h t s L i v e m u s i c m o s t F r i d a y ' s a n d g u e s t c h e f s w e e k l y
C a m p i n g a n d G l a m p i n g a v a i l a b l e o n s i t e a s w e l l a s p r i v a t e h i r e f o
Pick up your copy at arts venues, galleries, museums, art shops, cafés, libraries and tourist information centres (etc) throughout Dorset, Somerset, East Devon, West Wiltshire, Bristol and Bath Or subscribe online at: evolver.org.uk
Instagram: evolvermagazine
Flo(ra)tilla: Procession of plants
Marcia Teusink
10.30am start
4. OSR Projects, WEST COKER FREE - No booking required
Join us to celebrate the launch of Od Arts Festival 2023 with a procession of shipplant-sculptures as part of Marcia Teusink’s Dawe’s Twineworks Commission Flo(ra)tilla. The procession will last around 20 minutes, starting at OSR Projects and finishing at Dawe’s Twineworks.
The Plant Exchange
Marcia Teusink
12.30am - 5.30pm
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER FREE - No booking required
Although ostensibly rooted in one place, plants twist and turn as they respond to light and grow. They spread slowly on their own, or get transported longer distances with the help of wind, birds, animals and people. For the duration of the Od Arts Festival, a plant exchange will be set up inviting visitors to donate and/or adopt plants and cuttings for free.
Eleanor Duffin and Owen Lloyd
7pm
10. St Michael and All Angels, EAST COKER FREE - No booking required
An invitation to lie down and think slowly, at a geological pace. Originally created as an imagining of the substrata in St Ives and Carbis Bay, Cornwall, A Grounding is a spoken text which aims to evoke
a dreamlike state, and provoke you to imagine your own journey to those locations or a place familiar to you.
Echoed Ecstasy - Performance
Clare Whistler
From 7.30pm
9. In front of Coker Court, EAST COKER FREE - No booking required
Collaborative artist and performer Clare Whistler will make her own response to Nicola Turner’s sculpture Echoed Ecstasy at Coker Court, in the form of movement. Turner and Whistler are regular collaborators, working together exploring the relationship between sculpture and performance.
Look out for anyone wearing one of these badges! They will be carrying with them a talisman made especially for Od Arts Festival 2023 - Still and still moving. Talismans are traditionally portable objects endowed with magical properties, usually to protect the owner. The badges are a signal, inviting you to see the artwork carried in people’s pockets.
Lisa Bartlett
9 - 10am
2. Village Hall, WEST COKER
Booking required £5
Everyone is welcome to join local Iyengar Yoga teacher, Lisa Bartlett, for this session, suitable for all abilities. The class will explore finding stillness in some simple classical yoga postures (asana) while observing the movement of the breath. Iyengar Yoga is an authentic and systematic school of classical yoga, which through the use of yoga props, allows every‘body’ to participate regardless of age, gender, or experience level. Please bring a yoga mat if you have one. Anyone with mobility issues is welcome to join in sitting on a chair.
Clare Whistler
10.30 -11.30am
3. The Pound, WEST COKER
FREE - No booking required
Collaborative artist and performer Clare Whistler will make her own response to Nicola Turner’s sculpture Echoed Ecstasy at The Pound, West Coker, in the form of movement. Turner and Whistler are regular collaborators, working together exploring the relationship between sculpture and performance.
Although ostensibly rooted in one place, plants twist and turn as they respond to light and grow. They spread slowly on their own, or get transported longer distances with the help of wind, birds, animals and people. For the duration of the Od Arts Festival, a plant exchange will be set up inviting visitors to donate and/or adopt plants and cuttings for free.
Tom Sewell
11am -12.30pm
5. The Orchard, WEST COKER
Booking Required £5
Join artist Tom Sewell for a Sculptural Circle building workshop. Inspired by the prehistoric stone and timber circles of the Atlantic archipelago and their history of communal construction, the workshop will offer opportunities to participate in the creation of structures using found materials, which will form the parts of the circle. Everything will be dismantled after the festival - with the materials returned to their point of finding.
Marcia Teusink
11am - 12pm
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER
Booking Required £5
Marcia Teusink
10.30am - 5.30pm
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER
FREE - No booking required
Participants are invited to take some time to slow down and closely observe everyday plants from around the site of the Twineworks, using sticks and other plants parts to draw with ink.
Sara Trillo
2 - 3.30pm
Starting - 7. The Village Café, EAST COKER
Booking Required £5
Sara Trillo will be leading walks around the holloways in East Coker, sharing stories inspired by local folklore, and in particular speculating on drovers’ and smugglers’ paths, hiding places, disguises, and smugglers’ tales. She will be wearing a specially made costume inspired by the local landscape, and in the spirit of a pilgrimage, walkers will receive a unique clay talisman to mark their participation. Each walk will be circular in nature, with the meeting point at The Village Café in East Coker. The walks will be at a gentle pace with regular stops to share stories.
Caitlin Akers
2 - 4.30pm
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER
Booking Required £5
Participate in a twine inspired bookbinding workshop where you will learn how to create some simple sewn book structures in the unique surroundings of Dawe’s Twineworks. Spooling, twisting, braiding, twine walk, rope walk, twisting heads, fast and loose – the process and machinery used in traditional twine making has a unique language that evokes movement. Taking this as a starting point Caitlin’s workshops will provide an opportunity to learn and enjoy slow and productive movement, and to reflect on the industrial history of the Twineworks whilst making.
Silent Disco
7.30pm - 11.30pm
2. Village Hall, WEST COKER
Booking Required £5
Grab some headphones, choose your sounds and make some shapes. Join us for an evening of awesome beats and sonic treats compiled especially for this event by three guest artists. Od Arts Festival bar will be open all night. All welcome.
Please check access information for workshops and events on pg 31
For workshops or events that require bookings go to www.odartsfestival.co.uk
This year Od Arts Festival extends beyond the festival weekend with an online programme. For details of how to access a selection of art works, and to book for artists’ talks and events visit www.odartsfestival.co.uk
Holloways and Hide-aways - Walk
Sara Trillo
10.30am - 12pm
Starting - 7. The Village Café, EAST COKER
Booking Required £5
Sara Trillo will be leading walks around the holloways in East Coker, sharing stories inspired by local folklore, and in particular speculating on drovers’ and smugglers’ paths, hiding places, disguises, and smugglers’ tales. She will be wearing a specially made costume inspired by the local landscape, and in the spirit of a pilgrimage, walkers will receive a unique clay talisman to mark their participation. Each walk will be circular in nature, with the meeting point at The Village Café in East Coker. The walks will be at a gentle pace with regular stops to share stories.
Something to hold on to - Talisman making OSR Projects Young Potters
10.30am - 1pm
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER
Booking Required £3
Make your own clay talisman with OSR Projects young potters. Taking inspiration from Sara Trillo’s Holloways and Hide-aways, you will be guided by local school children to make your own commemorative keepsake. Talismans are traditionally portable objects endowed with magical properties, usually to protect the owner, made to fit comfortably in the hand, something to hold tightly whilst walking. Imagine smugglers navigating the dark leafy lanes at night, slightly fearful of being discovered, but given courage by holding a talisman as they walk.
Seaweed in the Fruit Locker - Performance
12-2pm
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER
FREE - No booking required
You will be entertained by Seaweed in the Fruit Locker LGBTQIA+ sea shanty choir. The choir have used their lived experience to rework existing shanties and inspire new ones, continuing the tradition of these hybrid folk songs being adapted time and again through generations and across cultures.
Marcia Teusink
10.30am - 5.30pm
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER
FREE - No booking required
Although ostensibly rooted in one place, plants twist and turn as they respond to light and grow. They spread slowly on their own, or get transported longer distances with the help of wind, birds, animals and people. For the duration of the Od Arts Festival, a plant exchange will be set up inviting visitors to donate and/or adopt plants and cuttings for free.
Marcia Teusink
2pm - 3pm -
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, WEST COKER
Booking Required £5
Participants are invited to take some time to slow down and closely observe everyday plants from around the site of the Twineworks, using sticks and other plants parts to draw with ink.
7.30pm - 11.30pm
2. Village Hall, WEST COKER
£5 Booking required
Grab some headphones, choose your sounds and make some shapes. Join us for an evening of awesome beats and sonic treats compiled especially for this event by three guest artists. Od Arts Festival bar will be open all night. All welcome.
We’re a small family-run business, and when you eat our food, we hope you’ll feel like one of the family too…
Our mouth-watering menu includes freshlyprepared Greek delicacies such as souvlaki, meatballs, hand crafted pies and our famous pastries (both savoury & sweet of course!)
We also have Vegetarian, Vegan & Gluten Free options to make sure that everyone can enjoy our food.
In Greece, food isn’t just food – it’s a way of life. With the freshest ingredients that are lovingly prepared in our kitchen, let’s make the most of your lunch break, dinner time or next event, with My Greek Fat Wraps.
Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker Saturday and Sunday 12-4pm
Eat Like A Greek!
Od Arts Festival is produced by OSR Projects. We are artist-run and welcome everyone.
Thank you to our host venues, and the people that run them, including: Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker Village Hall, The Orchard, Jubilee Pavillon, The Village Café, East Coker, Coker Court, The Cemetery Chapel and St Michael and All Angels’ Church.
Thank you to our wonderful team of volunteers for being great ambassadors for the festival, Od Arts Festival committee: Ella, Alex, Ross, Katy, Tabatha, Daisy and Lilly. OSR Projects directors Rowan, Bob, Sam, and Jo. Technical support, Andy and Susie for marketing and comms support, and evaluation.
We are grateful for the generosity and support of our funders and sponsors Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, Coker Rope and Sail CIO, Somerset Community Foundation, John Burton Signs, The New Inn, West Coker and East Coker Parish Councils and Creeds Design & Print.
Thank you to the organisations that helped co-select artists: Primary, AirSpace Gallery, Hogchester Arts, CAMP, More Than Ponies, Extra Ordinary People, Spike Island Associates.
A special thanks to all the artists involved in this year’s festival.
And thank you for coming
Simon, Chantelle and CatOSR Projects, Church St, West Coker, Yeovil, Somerset BA22 9BD 01935 862201 www.osrprojects.co.uk
1. Dawe’s Twineworks, West Coker
7. The Village Cafe, East Coker
Caitlin Akers
Will Cruickshank
Stine Gonsholt and Åse Løvgren
Marcia Teusink
2. Village Hall, West Coker
Sara Trillo - walks set off from The Village Café, East Coker. Booking required.
8. Cemetery Chapel, East Coker 1 space
Will Cruickshank
Elaine Wong
Ufuoma Essi
Dan Guthrie
Arjuna Neuman
3. The Pound, Chur Lane, West Coker
Nicola Turner with Clare Whistler
4. OSR Projects, West Coker
9. Coker Court, East Coker 1 space
Nicola Turner with Clare Whistler
Ella West
Bedwyr Williams
10. St Michael and All Angels’ Church, East Coker
Dean Coates
Tracy Hill
Tom Sewell
Nastassja Simensky
Marcia Teusink
Sara Trillo
5. The Orchard, East Close, West Coker
Laura Hopes
Tom Sewell
6. Jubilee Pavilion, West Coker
Owen Lloyd and Eleanor Duffin
Access Key:
Wheelchair Access
Toilet
Street Parking or Car Park available
Hearing Loop
Assistance dogs welcome to all venues
Jennet Thomas
NOTE: Venues and times may change, please check online or at OSR the Festival Hub for any changes.
OSR Projects presents
Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 July 2023, 11am - 6pm
An exhibition at
Simon Lee Dicker / Sam Jukes / Andy Parker
Arnolfini,16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA www.arnolfini.org.uk
Image credit: The Flatlands Simon Lee Dicker 2023
