Fall of the Derwent
Justy Phillips & Margaret Woodward
GASP (Glenorchy Art & Sculpture Park) lutruwita (Tasmania) 2017.
Curated by Jonathan Kimberley & Pippa Dickson
Fall of the Derwent, is an experiment in hydrographic publishing by artists Justy Phillips and Margaret Woodward, commissioned and presented by GASP (Glenorchy Art & Sculpture Park) as part of Swimmable: Reading the River.
In their ambitious hydrographic score, Fall of the Derwent, Phillips and Woodward draw from the river(s) Derwent, a living organism that re-composes with every reading. Generated in response to the current Energy in Storage Levels of the River Derwent, each hydrographic score is completely unique. An invitation to move-with a marking, cutting, flooding deluge in the making.
Through a year-long process of research-creation that included in-depth archival research, walking, writing, making, recording and publishing, the artists entered into relation-with the river as living event. Over two recent summers, the artists walk from the sea to the source of two Rivers Derwent. First, they walk from Workington to Borrowdale (UK) and then from Blackmans Bay to leeawuleena (Tasmania). They encounter more than one namesake. And then comes the fall. Fall of the Derwent is an actual, mythical event in the making–already made felt. A moving blackwards. No less.
In Fall, now a river. Now a leech. Now a hook on a line on a rod on the arms of a man who walks with the night in a sweat-stained cornflower collar. Black lipped. Tight lipped. Union is strength, Phillips and Woodward invite a site-specific publishing of their ambitious hydrographic score, Fall of the Derwent (26 November, 2016). Made public with one hundred hand-to-hand publishers, this reading score is a marking, cutting, flooding deluge in the making. Each line, released through the current Energy in Storage Levels of the River Derwent. It is a call to move-with the river of life. An actual, mythical event in the making–already made felt. A moving blackwards. No less.
Readers: Cullen Butters, Jerry de Gryse, Ruth Hadlow, Sarah Jones, Clare Larman, Justy Phillips, Colin Maier, Amanda Robson, Margaret Woodward.
See more at fallofthederwent.net and apublishedevent.net.
