Folkestone Triennial Art Trail

Catherine starts the tour

 The Folkestone Triennial is an event that attracts International artists to the coastal town every three years. The 2020 event was postponed due to Covid and is taking place in 2021.

The theme of the event is The Plot. According to the website it "invites visitors to consider urban myths and their relation to verifiable realities: the gap between the story and the actuality." 

"The Plot uses three historic Folkestone narratives as a point of departure: St Eanswythe’s watercourse; the physician William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood; and Folkestone’s industrial road ‘The Milky Way’. Referring to passages of movement - the movement of water, blood and goods - the exhibition will present artworks in public spaces across the town, along the various routes associated with these stories. By borrowing from, or lending to, existing narratives, the exhibition, though set in Folkestone, raises questions around the universal need to distinguish reality from myth; encouraging viewers to question the gap between fact and fiction, and what ‘place-making’ really means:

‘‘Although set in Folkestone, the exhibition’s theme is a universal one, prompting us to consider the relation between stories and material realities everywhere in the world. Everyone becomes aware at some point of the gap between our lived experience and what is narrated about it. Sometimes this gap is so extreme that we assume it is the result of malice – it’s a plot. With conspiracy theories becoming ever more popular, it’s never been more urgent to think about the gap between the talk and the action, between our stories and our realities…” Lewis Biggs, Curator of Creative Folkestone Triennial

The title The Plot suggests multiple meanings. Conceptually, a ‘plot’ can be a narrative or conspiracy; from a material point of view, it can also mean a plot of land, or to plot a course or graph – things that are mathematically verifiable. Observing the gap between personally verified experience and what is otherwise told or narrated, the Triennial urges viewers to consider the voids left behind by ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truths’.

"The gap between narrative and reality, promise and execution, will often attract our attention (whether amazement, hilarity, criticism or anger). But it’s this same gap that enables art to change people, and so also change the world. It’s the promise of the symbolic world that brings people together and motivates us to act. The artist’s imagination enables us to look at the material world, to imagine how it could be, and realise that it does not have to be the way it is. Great art can lead us to work together to change our surroundings." Lewis Biggs, Curator of Creative Folkestone Triennial

When I lived in Folkestone I ran around all the artworks in the town - 72 in total. You can read about my run here : Creative Folkestone Artworks Run

This time local runner Catherine O'Connor had arranged running tours and so I returned to the seaside to join my fellow Bald Monkey Running Club members for a run with a difference.

We began at Quarterhouse, the performing arts venue in Tontine Street, the cultural heart of Folkestone. From there we climbed up to St Peters C of E Primary School. Here was a work entitled

On the circulation of blood - Sam Belinfante

At the top of the hill overlooking the harbour was a piece called On the circulation of blood which references William Harvey's famous work. Harvey was born in Folkestone. It is comprised of theatrical apparatuses, nets, lighting and audio installations. The area it is located used to be the place where the local fishermen repaired and dried their nets. 

Janus' Fortress by Pilar Quinteros

On the cliff top overlooking the harbour is Janus' Fortress. Janus was the Roman god of beginnings and transitions. The faces look both inwards to Folkestone and the UK and outwards to the continent of Europe representing the present as poised between the past and the future. Over time the head will disintegrate naturally.

Climate Emergency Services by Mike Stubbs

We descended and ran through the harbour to the Harbour Arm. Here was a painted transit van that is parked here but also drives around to different locations. This is from the website:

Climate Emergency Services is a ‘conflicted’ vehicle and artwork, aiming to evoke and challenge our love / hate relationship with motor vehicles in a period becoming characterised by our increasing fear of climate change. The conflicted quality of the artwork’s message is condensed into the contract between the exterior and interior of the vehicle.

Outside, the bodywork references the high temperature culture of car modification for ‘high performance’ and the linkage between the conspicuous consumption of oil and ‘the apocalyptic’. Inside, the cabin is designed to evoke a science laboratory that might be plotting the environmental indicators triggered by climate change, and a place of cool optimism in which the thinking needed to survive that climate change can be pursued.

Atsiaƒu ƒe agbo nu (Gateways of the Sea) by Atta Kwami

Just around the corner is a large double archway representing the four pathways on the Harbour Arm. It symbolises an entrance and an exit and is especially poignant given the arrived of immigrants along the coastline.

Fortune Here

There was a powerful, gusty wind which almost lifted us from our feet so we didn't cross the beach but headed along Marine Parade where they have erected a pavilion that takes its inspiration from the Rotunda amusement arcade. It contains games that address contemporary topics. 

Respect Road - Gilbert and George

The famous artists Gilbert and George have created six billboards around the town reflecting issues.

The Ledge - Bill Woodrow

We ran on into the wind past the Eskimo statue which was a late arrival for the 2017 Triennial. We then reached the newly painted Beach Huts.

No. 1054, Arpeggio by Rana Begum

These 120 colourful huts are painted with arrows which point towards the town. They represent musical notes and comment on the absorption and reflection of light as well as being a beautiful spectacle along the coastline.

Another steep climb up the Zig Zag path brought us to I am Argonaut. Again from the website:

For Creative Folkestone Triennial 2021 the artist has drawn on his experience as a disabled artist to create a contemporary figurative sculpture (monumental in ambition but relatively intimate in size) – I Am Argonaut – to be placed ‘in conversation’ with the monumental statue of William Harvey, son of the Mayor of Folkestone, Royal Physician and discoverer of the circulation of the blood. This dialogue has a very particular and personal significance for Jason, since his disabilities have been caused by a disease of the blood in his childhood. For him it has been an opportunity to pay his respects to a great scientist whose studies paved the way for some of the great advances of modern medicine.

Major themes that consistently run throughout Jason’s work include his experience as a disabled person and the struggles he has endured through illness since childhood up until the present day, trying to translate his daily experiences and challenges to the audience. A major aspect of his work also focuses on the treatment and perception of disability and disabled people in society, as well as social history and the democratic process.

This was a profound work once we had heard the story behind it.

I am Argonaut by Jason Wilsher-Mills

Finally we encountered another work by Atta Kwami. Traditional West-African street vending kiosks.

Dusiadu (EveryTown) by Atta Kwami

I spotted three other new works on my way home:

Art buff by Banksy

Gilbert and George

St Eanswyth's return by Winter / Horbelt