Stones: Circles: Landscape: Art

'Stones: Circles: Landscape: Art' was an exhibition of Cumbrian prehistoric artefacts and contemporary painting, sculpture, collage and sound.

The work was selected for this Arts Council England-funded museum residency and exhibition, organized by Judith Clarke, Director of Penrith Museum and Steve Ogden, Head of Ceramics Department at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Carlisle (CIA) in 2006, because of Callery's ongoing research into exploring the creative possibilities and connections between contemporary art and archaeology. This project addresses how contemporary art and prehistoric artefacts may be exhibited together.

Demonstrating how connections could be made between ceramics produced in the current landscape and creating an understanding of prehistoric ceramics produced in the same landscape, the exhibition was curated by Aaron Watson, a trained archeologist, in association with Callery. This group show combined Cumbrian Neolithic artefacts with contemporary painting, sculpture, collage and sound and aimed to illuminate and respond to the continuity of human presence and activity in the historic landscape of Cumbria. Displays of Neolithic objects included the largest group of Langdale axe heads ever shown publicly. It included work by Susanne Batchelor, Brian Cowper, Lorna Graves, Phil Morsman, John Was, Aaron Watson, Robert Williams and Jack Aylward-Williams.

Callery produced two ceramic sculptures that were integrated into a custom designed and built display case with Cumbrian Neolithic ceramic ware - funerary urns and beakers. Supported by the technical staff at CIA, the ceramics were made from pressing clay slabs on to the rock surfaces at the Apron of Stones, Carrock Fell. Once fired and presented the relationship with the Neolithic earthenware existed through a material and geographic common ground. These ceramics were not presented under glass and could be touched. They acted as a physical and textural conduit for the ceramic ware of Neolithic potters whose names are lost forever.

A public talk to the Cumbrian Arts network accompanied the exhibition.

Simon Callery was the AHRC Research Fellow in Creative and Performing Arts.