Home All images are © Steve Chettle unless otherwise attributed Crawick Artland - A major art and regeneration project for Upper Nithsdale |
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In what is set to be one of the largest and most ambitious of Charles Jencks’ projects, this significant development for the Upper Nithsdale area of Dumfries and Galloway is being developed on the site of a former open cast coalmine near Sanquhar. Some 160,000 tonnes of earth will be moved and shaped into new landforms to create the foundations for an arresting Artland on the 55-acre site.
It will build into an attraction and a local amenity that will draw visitors from nearby, as well as from around the world. Crawick Artland is one of half a dozen projects that Charles Jencks – who also created The Garden of Cosmic Speculation at his house at Portrack, in Dumfries – is currently working on, having completed the Olympic Forest Park in Beijing prior to the Games in 2008.
As well as a major arts project in its own right, it will also be a community amenity and facility that will provide a new outdoor space with a variety of activities for local people, including having a choice of walks suiting varying levels of physical fitness and new opportunities for greater participation in, and enjoyment of, the rural landscape.
People will be able to enjoy activities such as bird watching, picnics, pond dipping, and looking at the 360-degree view of the surrounding area from the northern high point of the site.
When completed, Crawick Artland will be a prestigious major resource and facility in Upper Nithsdale. Local people will be able to take a pride in a high quality project that is for their benefit and which will help increase quality of life, community and civic pride, confidence and cohesion in an area that is affected by high levels of social, economic and health deprivation.
Local schools will be able to use it for educational field trips to study art in the landscape as well as, for instance, astronomy, botany, geography, history, literature and mathematics.
A programme of education activities will take place which will involve and engage local people of all ages and abilities. These will include creative arts workshops, artists’ talks and art, landscape and environment based films.
People will have a facility for recreation which is available on foot from Sanquhar and close to Kelloholm and Kirkconnel. It is also linked to the Southern Upland Way via core paths. The potential for a footpath from Kelloholm and Kirkconnel will also be investigated.
Crawick Artland will support the objective of getting children, young people and adults out in the open to exercise and experience and enjoy the landscape.
In addition to the broad health and social benefits, it will be marketed as a visitor and tourist destination, with a subsequent increase in spending in the local economy. It will create jobs and work opportunities for local people and businesses. It will be a major new tourist attraction to the area, complementing existing facilities such as Drumlanrig Castle. Local people, groups and organisations will be encouraged to make full use of the facility and to engage with it on a long-term and sustainable basis.
The project is to be developed in three stages:
Phase 1
Three major Charles Jencks’ art forms will be created - 25 metre high scalloped cliffs called the comet walk will lead to a northern viewing point. Two 20 metre and 15 metre high galaxy mounds and an amphitheatre that will be 120 metre wide and with a 70 metre radius for community events.
There will be a series of rivulets created at the cliff base to the outer circle of the amphitheatre and shallow lagoon ponds next to the amphitheatre and galaxy mounds.
Four viewing points will allow greater visual access to the dramatic steeply cut Bridge-end Cleuch.
A stone “path” using recovered red sandstone from the site will emphasise the north-south orientation of Crawick Artland.
Phase 2
Three to five artists will be commissioned to make works responding to the site and acknowledging what has been constructed already whilst at the same time offering fresh visions.
Phase 3
An annual or biennial Crawick Artland Competition will be established in which residency artists complete a work that responds to, and further enhances, the site.
Crawick Artland will support economic development in Upper Nithsdale, an area of economic deprivation with high unemployment, by providing jobs and employment both for the building of the site and the works and as a new permanent visitor destination, which draws more people to the area and increases income for local businesses and services.
Crawick Artland will link to other arts projects in Dumfries and Scotland such as Striding Arches, Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Little Sparta, Gretna Landmark Sculpture, Jupiter Artland, Landworks, 7 Stanes, Glenkiln, Galloway Forest Park, Spring Fling and Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival. This will support the development of south west Scotland as an important area for arts ands culture, with subsequent tourism visits increasing visitor spend in the Upper Nithsdale area.
Visitor packages will be developed which link with, for instance, Drumlanrig, Leadhills Mining Museum, Dumfries House, in order to offer tourists an opportunity to enjoy a wide range of art and non-art experiences.
The project will be a major part of the tourism strategy which is currently in development for the Nith Valley.
The aim is to have Crawick Artland open to visitors in 2012.