Stephen Turner’s Exbury Egg
Grand Union Canal
Stanton Low Park and Great Linford Park Milton Keynes
5 April – 14 May 2017
Community Preview: Stanton Low Park: Sunday 2 April 2017 1pm – 5pm
Open: Wednesday – Sunday 12 noon – 6pm Admission Free
See events and activities below
In Milton Keyens, Stephen Turner’s Exbury Egg will be refloated on the Grand Union Canal in Stanton Low Park, where Stephen Turner will also continue his exploration of investigation of places and communities. The Egg will host an exhibition of Stephens artworks, as an installation which references its previous journeys from Exbury through Burnley and London.
Stephen will be exploring the local environment surrounding the Egg’s location and be in residence during this time, offering a range of participation opportunities for local people to engage with him, such as an artist’s walk and talk as well as issuing personal invitations to take ‘Tea in the Egg’ with him. These are special chances to enjoy conversation and to tune into thinking around contemporary life and our shared responsibility to care for nature. Stephen’s work often involves spending long periods of deep engagement in particular odd abandoned places, noting the changes in the complex relationship between people and the natural environment and this residence in Milton Keynes will lead to a new unfolding chapter.
On Monday 8 May Stephen’s Egg will slowly progress from its location at Stanton Low Park a half mile east to a new mooring at Great Linford on land adjoining the Milton Keynes Arts Centre, where additional artwork about the Egg created by Stephen will be on display from Wednesday 10 May – Sunday 14 May in the Old Schoolhouse. These works cross-over from visual art to contemporary craft, embracing carpentry, dyeing, food production, pastel and ink making, photography, video and drawing. Stephen comments "In an urban 21st century world where we are increasingly disconnected from nature I wanted to use this ancient archetypal symbol to nurture re-enchantment with the natural world, as a step toward a sustainable future."
All welcome. Refreshments will be served and you will be able to collect a specially commissioned ‘Kids’ Guide to Stephen Turner’s Exbury Egg’ created by White Wall Yellow Door with lots of activities to do inspired by the Egg and Stephen’s work as an artist.
Photo: White Wall Yellow Door
An opportunity to meet and talk to Stephen (free but places must be booked – please email Fiona.boundy@milton-keynes.gov.uk to book a place)
Natural Dye making and Egg related fun with Dyeworks
Join Stephen and Forest and Folk for ‘a walk and a forage’ around Stanton Low and Great Linford Park
Milton Keynes Arts Centre, Parklands, Milton Keynes, MK14 5DZ
Sunday 14 May 12 noon – 5pm: Egg Leaving Celebration and Natural Dye Making Workshop with Dyeworks
everything comes from the egg is the touring exhibition of Stephen Turner's Exbury Egg and a wide range of new artworks developed and made by Stephen Turner while he was located and worked amongst communities in Exbury and subsequently in Burnley, London, Milton Keynes, Portsmouth and Hastings through 2016 and 2017. The Exbury Egg was originally located for over twelve months on the Beaulieu River in the care of The Exbury Estate through 2013 and 2014.
everything comes from the egg now tours to venues in England through 2017, including, Trinity Buoy Wharf, London - reaching out to communities around the River Lee, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth (where the Exbury Egg will be located in Gunwharf Quays) and Jerwood Gallery, Hastings. The tour reflects and develops upon Turner’s original performative relationship with the Egg as a stage for events that embrace the concept that "everything comes from the egg" (Ex Ovo Omnia, William Harvey 1651) and relocates the Exbury Egg and Stephen's practice within four different public visual arts contexts for further explorations and the development of new artworks. These new local contexts are explored by Stephen through residencies as he develops new works, interacting with a wide range of people and communities along urban canals, within a shopping center and by the seaside.
Future exhibition tour dates:
Aspex & Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth: 16 June - 3 September 2017
Jerwood Gallery, Hastings: 16 September - 15 October 2017
Stephen's original blog for the Exbury Egg and his residency in Exbury through 2013-14 is here: www.exburyegg.me
The Exbury Egg was designed to the artist’s original concept by PAD Studio in Lymington, Hampshire and commissioned by Space Placemaking & Urban Design (SPUD).
everything comes from the egg is financially supported by Canal & River Trust, Gunwharf Quays, Superslowway, Jerwood Gallery, Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust and public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
everything comes from the egg (and the original Exbury Egg project) could not have been possible without the continuing support of Nicholas and Caroline de Rothschild and the Exbury Estate.