How to Survive in the Coming Bad Years

Clay, sand, straw, clay piping, wood

This artwork featured in Give Me Shelter (2008 – 2009). A Meadow Arts commission (2008).

In an ancient oak woodland at the core of Attingham’s vast 4,000 acre land, an immense clay structure rises through the trees like an oversized Dalek. Alien and primeval, How to Survive in the Coming Bad Years is inspired by traditional rookeries found throughout the Middle East where in return for shelter, the birds provide their squab to fertilise the land on which food is cultivated. Ivan and Heather Morison‘s huge lime and cob sculpture suggests the vestige of an alien civilisation or perhaps a post-apocalyptic future in which man and nature will need to find new ways to coexist in a harmonious and mutually beneficial way. In this case the structure will provides a nesting environment for Attingham’s birdlife before disintegrating back into the ground.

Image: Heather and Ivan Morrison, How to Survive in the Coming Bad Years, clay, sand , straw, clay piping and wood. Installation view, Give Me Shelter, Attingham Park, 2009. Image courtesy Meadow Arts. 

 

About the artist

Heather & Ivan Morison

Heather and Ivan Morison exhibited in The Long Afternoon of Earth, The Hive, 2018; Synthetic Landscapes, Weston Park, Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, 2017; and Give Me Shelter, Attingham Park, 2009, all commissioned by Meadow Arts.

Image: Heather & Ivan Morison, How to Survive in the Coming Bad Years. Clay, sand, straw, clay piping, wood, installation view, Give Me Shelter, Attingham Park, 2009. Image courtesy Meadow Arts.