LT Ranch Summer Session 2017

LT Ranch Summer Session 2017

LT Ranch Summer Session 2017

Anna Parfirnko Yi-chuan Lui Yu-ting Wang 2009 : Ken Wilder Ami Kanki Changda Wu Dayea Park Georgina Walker Hyunsuk Park Lewis Barton Sofia Anastasiou 2011 Spyros Anastasiou Sylvia Yebing Yuan : Rob Nice Stasys Skliaustis

2012 Chris Humphrey Enzo Guida Keun Hye Lee John Wo Min Kang Mamo Jeulin He Marcus Boyle Max Thomson Mo Ja Neda Kahooker Patrick Yi-Wei Chen Paresh Parmar Recy Shao Sam Lo Ming Shum : Emma Hunter Stasys Skliaustis Abdulbari Kutbi Jacqueline Hu Jialing Li Mengjie Liu Mirella Dourampei Sang Kyong Jeong Wan2013 Yun Tsai Xin Wan Ya Gao Yang Bai : Janice Shales Jiri Hanzlik Stasys Skliaustis Bingyu Hu Bo Lu Fang Yuan Lijiao Wen Lin Wu Nan Yao Shandri van Rooyen Sue Ahmed Zuofung 2014 Zhou Yun Na Liu Yvonne Onah : Jeffrey Adjei Jiri Hanzlik Ken Wilder Stasys Skliautis

2015

Declan Ralph Emiliano Zavala Faezeh Fathi Helen Brewer Liu Yang Lu Peng Nathan Back-Chamness Richard Ford Tianyue Wang Wei Wu Yvonne Onah : Alison Lloyd Annemarie Piscaer Jeffrey Adjei Jiri Hanzlik Stasys Skliaustis Tina Tran Daniel Stilwell Declan Ralph Elif Ergisi Faezeh Fahti Gemma Maria la Rocca Owain Caruana-Davies 2016 Richard Ford Sarah Stollery Yingting Franne Yuan Yuan Zoey Zhao : Jeffrey Adjei Ken Wilder Lucy Alice Jones Stasys Skliaustis

2017 Adrienne Ursula Bennie Athina Leontiou Charlotte Crocker Clinton Olajide Jr. Faezeh Fathi Luna Ozbek Nathan Back-Chamness Piera Dencker-Rasmussen Richard Ford Zigiant El-Sarkaoui : Jeffrey Adjei Ken Wilder Lucy Alice Jones Stasys Skliaustis

The gallery forests and silver birch.

Various grasses, stones and gumboots.

An area where runoff from higher ground collected after the rain.

When the dust settled, the mushrooms would grow.

The thick forest that dappled with sun.

The night sky bleached bright by the moon.

We shared stories, laughter, discovered new things but most importantly we learnt skills and learnt the importance of the ‘gumboot’.

We learnt about the land, we walked the pre-exiting tracks and created our own along the way.

We were all from different homelands We became immersed in each other backgrounds and adapted to the buzzing of the mosquito.

For sure, the level of creativity was clear.

Between time spent cooking and swimming.

We took from the land and added to the landscape.

We had the pleasure of silence and heard the chirping birds.

We built strong and acculturated versions of ourselves.

And sang in the barn and around the fire.

Today we are grateful and appreciative of the memories we made and most importantly the friendships we gained.

The Ranch.

A place for momentary relocation.

New sounds, smells, languages and tastes.

We must not forget to mention the importance of the potato.

Oh, and Soup! Lots of soup and sour cream…

This catalogue is an insight into the creative brain of the ranch 2017.

Adrienne Bennie

the hearth Jeffrey Adjei

There are always things to mend, adjust and make good at the Ranch. The spaces and places that needed some maintenance this year was the fire pit at Stonehenge: to enclose the brick surround with a mesh ring to contain the fire for our evening social moments: meals, musical and sometimes solitary moments.

This care and attention was shared by the making of new stone steps (Nathan, Emily, Clinton and Richard) to step up and step down from Stonehenge.

According to Jeffrey’s snagging list, next year we plan to make some of these infrastructural moments our meanwhile motivation: seating at Stonehenge ++. (text by KK)

stepping sequence

Clinton Olajide Jr, Nathan Back-Chamness, Richard Ford, Emily Legg These steps were an early adjustment to accessing Stonehenge with some carefully selected stones. Over the fall and spring preceding this year’s Summer Session we had done some landscape work to choreograph water flows around/from the house, and enlarge the drive as these levels had become wind swept and soil layers had accumulated over time. Various places weather over time and need attending to help the group move around the site, this one a carefully positioned stepping sequence. (text by KK)

into the woods Charlotte Crocker

Recycling elements found in nature, the device will track the journeys we took during our time on the ranch. The Baltic landscape, evocative of fairytales, is ever changing and invites you to get lost. Hansel and Gretel left a trail of breadcrumbs to make their way back home. A manglelike mechanism crushes seeds; by the next summer the seeds will germinate and become evident in the landscape, allowing us to retrace our steps.

https://vimeo.com/232217825

Re-constructing The Sleigh: Mystery of Archaeology Adrienne Bennie

The process of reconstructing the sleigh and the mystery of archaeology is an extension of my practice in London.

Dealing with transience, microbiology and the boundary between the surface and the place where identity can be formed.

My work in Lithuania considers human activity through the recovery and analysis of material cultures.

In this case the sleigh.

By understanding of the importance of fragments, the idea of ‘the prop’ transpired. This work is an intervention that deals with the adding of a new layer of meaning to something that has had a specific purpose. The intention was not to try and replicate the sleigh but to highlight the spatial relationshipd it has with the ranch and the correlation it has in terms of transience and itinerancy.

It sits elegantly in the barn, depicting the conditions it has endured.

Near But Apart

Clinton I Olajide Jr

To me the ranch became home. Home to our memories and to those who were there before us, home to the physical marks they left and home to all our emotions that has formed its landscape, the cries cried on the treacherous hike from the Big Barn to the house evading mosquitoes, flailing from flies. Home to the intimate, private moments we share with its grounds, to the laughter around the fire, the rumbles around the dinner table, the snores in the sleeping barn, the drilling by the big barn, the whispers of life surrounding the sauna, the echos of the past hiding in the bunker and the clattering of cans in the house. This is Home.

The Sauna I wanted to collect these memories, experiences and celebrate them. The sauna became my host, itself recited the same story the ranch told, Isolated and away form everything else but radiates the closeness, intimacy that exists and grows on the ranch. The sauna was a place where families, friends, neighbors, strangers went possibly after a long day of working the land. They’d enter the steam room either naked or partially and this sweat bath helps relax their bodies, whilst dipping in and out of the pond outside also, in some cases people had meals in the sauna.

Within the structure there was a moment when you are able to ascend into the roof through a human size opening and inhabit this space, an opening which would have been use to let the steam out of the sauna.

The Tree House The tree house was initially a touch up project. It began its life not too long ago, a previous project by a previous rancher. But this memory had begun to fade, to rot, to fall apart. Replacing the old broken ladder made using the and removing some old cladding but whilst working on it, the trees house began to speak the same language the Sauna existing close to Stonehenge but apart in the tree house you are a part of the community, the conversations that is the essence of Stonehenge but far enough to be isolated and separate from that world.

Intimacy and Becoming The Site

I collected various phrases from everyone who were already able to describe there experience with one word, my hope wasn’t for that word to carry all their emotions throughout their experience but the way the person brings their writings to life of these places. The great thing was that this became an exercise for me to get to know people more and test my knowledge of those I’d known before the ranch. It was a great opportunity to experiment with all the different ways of showing a person’s personality from what I’ve seen though the week.

Carving Plants

Burning Drilling Sawing Wood Metals

Cutting Cotton

Jeffery: Ken: Kristina: Lucy: Zigiant: Adrienne: Athena: Nathan: Charlotte: Luna: Richard: Emily: Clinton:

COMMUNAL ELEMENTAL DELICIOUS INTIMATE SPIRITUAL WAYFARING TOUGH THOUGHTFUL POTATO GREEN CONTINUATION ESCAPE FAMILY

Mapping the maze

Piera Dencker-Rasmussen de Mascoli My exploration on the ranch began with mapping journeys throughout the forest in a non-linear way, using methods that left subtle imprints on the landscape.

Using red string, I was inspired by the glimpses we catch of trodden paths in grass. I then began capturing these moments through photographing them as the light catches on them.

I was then introduced to the maze, a space where during a storm, lightening had ripped up a wall of pines from the earth. They now lie horizontally on the earth, creating a rotated landscape where relationship between earth and sky was subverted. I mapped out the journeys using string, and created a device to film the environment which allowed for 360 rotation.

The alien studio in the ranch

The Invasion.

Zigiant El-Sarkaoui The project was concerned with recreating a spatial alien language with regards to my studio practice. The language developed an analogy of using various textural spaces as sites and also as the grounds to forge the sharing of these invasions.

These invasions regard themselves as part of the ranch landscape, and inhabit spaces of spiritual and extraterrestrial focal awareness. The compositions regard themselves towards an alien invasive motive of land-oriented language.

https://vimeo.com/230252243

Invasion phase one: was to install a point of mystery and space inhabitance that brought to show the placement of the alien typology.

Invasion phase two: an alien totem of living things, a portrayal of the worship and spatial imposition of the alien.

A true work of the fragment - worshipping the landscape.

Reflections on a Landscape Athina Leontiou

The project explores the spatial relation which is developed in the boundary line between the water stream and lakeside by using a man-made material such as a plastic surface.

The plastic material is suspended over the lake edge and becomes a filter for a new perception of the landscape. With the transparency of the plastic surface and the reflections created by the surroundings, the lake edge is questioned, blurred and finally altered.

https://vimeo.com/groups/484808/videos/231987753

eleutheromania

Luna Ilkay OZBEK

A reminder of nature. A readjustment of the mind. The definition of eleutheromania is an intense and irresistible desire for freedom. The design helps user reach into the pure state of human relaxation and unity with nature. The proposal consists on reconnecting man with nature through a boat which aims to give a different Vilnius experience for those who go across the lake with it, inviting them to perceive nature, panoramic lovely scenery, to reflect and to feel the silence.

https://vimeo.com/232219444

The Cross Bridge Emily Legg

The small water channel proved to be an obstacle when moving around site, separating the free movement between the two sides of the channel. The Cross Bridge was constructed to provide access, taking the same aesthetic approach as its neighboring project, with the silver birch trees bound into a cross formation to provide the ‘sides’ of the bridge.

Stogine

Faezeh Fathi, Richard Ford & Nathan Back-Chamness The Summer Session of 2017 saw the continuation of the Stogine, a roof structure to house materials and workshop equipment. With the central bay having been built last year, a template was there to be followed; our approach this year being one of pragmatism in order to arrive at a somewhat usable space by the end of the session.

The tin and clear plastic roofing materials offered a flexible and lightweight solution, putting little strain on the structure whilst being forgiving during the laying process and following the gentle topography of the roof.

THE BARN Ken Wilder

The short structural film is a kind of self-portrait, both of the barn itself (using gravity through a pendulum device attached to the barn’s trusses) and the artist (who is revealed on a ladder launching the filming mechanism). Scanning the space in a series of prescribed swinging and spinning movements, the film documents this beautiful rural structure, moved piece by piece from a neighbour’s property in 2014-15. The improvised filming device, using found material including red rope, timber, and a scaffolding pole and fixings, can both swing and spin under its own weight, tracing arcs through the space. The two mini Sony cameras struggle to autofocus, except at the upper ends of each sweeping arc. Facing opposite directions, the cameras provide simultaneous footage revealed by the split screen. At certain points in the film you can read the complex coding system by which each piece of timber was labelled by Kotov prior to being taken apart and reassembled on the new site. The film is an homage to this remarkable resurrection of a redundant structure, given new life by being relocated to the LT Ranch.

https://vimeo.com/227938973

1 minute Sculptures 2017*

Kristina Kotov

These little sculptures began to appear several years ago. With these last few summer sessions they became a kind of momentary recognition of props, piles, stacks, ways of purposefully making the ‘material’ collections recognisable as more than a random set of objects.

A momentary, attentive, intuitive play of objects.

Some forms remember former uses, props to hold something ‘out of the way’ just so, and small piles of nails & screws. These nail piles appear adjacent to fires areas, in the house in winter from the stove or this one near Stonehenge - the social space under the skies. The ashes are used to help the composting the outdoor loo, or fertilizing the apple trees in the orchard. Removing the metal is painstakingly performed so the ash can do its thing without corrosive matter. These nails & screws are a kind of remains of no longer remembered adjustments of the ranch. Frozen objects of toil and craft, twisted and sinewy.

*1 minute is a euphemism for anything between 20 sec ands 5 years.

previous page: pulled from the ashes above: ‘s-table scooter’ right: Ken’s filming device prop

UNKNOWN Faezeh Fathi

More refreshing than flowers As the springs flick the head On the greenest slopes in the mountains You shook a hundred horns of scalloped flowers _Hafiz.

Habitats Lucy Jones

The ranch is an ecology all of its own. We must respect that as we try to tread so lightly yet mark so steadily in the landscape.

The animal plastic clash of the stag’s antlers, one enormous plucky beetle to the apocalypse of the boars’ fields, the terrifying edge of the dark coniferous forest, are they poison mushrooms, beasts of magnificent human burden as we twittle like baby birds, sharing a work bench. In what I imagined to be waters from long lost glaciers, we swam deeper into geologic time. This place, it settles the nature of teaching, showing and doing with, laying clues, small adventures, unknown actions, repeated routine, sharing the value of new felt textures, resistances, challenges, perhaps awakening old old genetic behaviors and making joys. I mainly made a bird box. Thank you to Kristina for letting me use bits of old barn and Jeffrey for helping me on that last morning.

Lucy Jones, Charlotte Crocker, Richard Ford, Ken Wilder, Kristina Kotov, Luna Ozbek, Nathan Back Chamness, Stasys Skliaustis, Athina Leontiou, Clinton Olajide Jr., Emily Legg, Adrienne Bennie, Faezeh Fathi, Jeffrey Adjei, Piera Dencker-Rasmussen, Ziad El-Sarkaoui.

Missing from this group shot is our most valued neighbourhood new group member, Bob-san, our second hand Japanese red tractor.

We arrived to a wild site. The grass was high, the birds were still in their nested habitats, colour coded backdrops were attracting butterflies. The weather varied across the spectrum, the winds changed orientation of trees and projects, but this year’s projects and participants made the very best of the changing skies: shelters morphed, workspaces became mobile, the materials, the wildlife, the tools - accumulated and then dispersed again.

The Roof house grew with a new tailoring of details and transformed into a sheltered usable space with ambient light, a new bridge crossed and linked the various landscape studios.

The cinematic was captured of many projects, where seemingly the landscape was the prop for experimenting and evolving analogue recordings/insertions of virtual/ alien environments as immaterial studies of measured time capturing fauna, water variables and light.

The Big Barn (2b) grew new uses, filmically surveyed, a sleigh found in the original Barn 2, nearly repaired from dust returned to a its new home - a transience captured by intermittent light as a fleeting memory of snow.

The lake became a portal to silence and freedom, birds were offered shelters of both vernacular and a developer’s spec, and seeds were sown via a wearable dress.

Our everyday activity seemed to mirror the sky’s gradients of omminance and innocence.

A very sincere thank you to everyone who took part and helped the running of this year’s event, especially Dr. Ken Wilder (UAL), Jeffrey Adjei (UCA alumni & Shepard Robson Architects), Lucy Jones (UCA), Stasys Skliaustis and family, the early help of Faezeh Fathi sculpting out a topiary to access the wilderness through the grass, introducing us to THE gossip food: sunflower seeds - and everyone for tucking in and getting on with the ‘mission’ of the week with such commitment, gumption, and great works.

This catalogue is mixture of participants’ own layouts, some editing* was done though mostly spelling to represent the projects and the in between moments of social being, of everyone’s visit to the existing community, flora and fauna.

Kristina Kotov Artistic Director VšI LT Ranch Space Stučiu Kaimas, Utenos Region, Lithuania

LT Ranch Additional gratefulness to our supporting partners for this Summer Session 2017: Dr. Ken Wilder for his personal contribution towards much needed new tools.

Shepard Robson Architects, London for supporting Jeffrey’s presence with 3 days leave.

A heartfelt thank you too everyone not mentioned directly, who support the Ranch project with conversation, advice, a sense of humour, especially the LT Ranch Trustees: Asta Spurgis Sirvelis (Alaska), Chris Butler (UK/Lithuania), Nial Healy (London & Cork) and Sabina Kotov (USA & Australia).

Stasys & Brone Skliaustis, Antanas Skliaustis, Arturas & Julija Vaselejev and our Stučių neighbours.

© LT Ranch Summer Session 2017 Cameras as usual were shared and in some cases authorship difficult, though images and films were nonetheless generously donated to the LT Ranch 2017 archive, all copyrights to the participants of LT Ranch Summer Session of 2017. http://ltranchspace.blogspot.co.uk/ https://www.facebook.com/theRanchLithuaniaLT Instagram: lt_ranch_space

* Language and grammar of written descriptions have been left for the most part in tact to reveal paparticipants’ own dialects and language to retain their original voices.