[title]
The second of Folkestone’s impressive town-wide sculpture trails sticks admirably to its wistful, nautical theme of ‘A Million Miles From Home’, taking in an exotic array of model boats, the liminal tales of homeless immigrants caught between borders, at least two fascinating portraits of North African ports, some lost timepieces from the French Revolution and a long displaced bell, now given the opportunity to ring out again.
Only Martin Creed’s intervention in the old water-powered Leas Lifts seems truly tailor-made for its spot: his lilting musical scales, which follow the ascent or descent of the creaky Victorian elevators, having been played by a nearby Kentish string quartet. Another nice local touch is the inclusion of indigenous artists’ collective, Strange Cargo, who have plastered street corners and landmarks with informative brown plaques giving tourist-friendly guidance and tidbits of Folkestone folklore.
So far, so friendly, but this triennial festival has still got a long way to go if it really wants to be accepted as a worthwhile fixture by the somewhat restless natives. The first edition in 2008 was peppered with big name British sculptors, including submissions from Mark Wallinger, Tracey Emin, Richard Wentworth and Richard Wilson, all of which remained as permanent additions to the landscape – some better loved than others (Wilson’s crazy golf-inspired beach hut was having to undergo significant repairs on my visit).
Second time round, though, the next most famous artist interloper and most likely to have her piece retained for posterity after the 2011 Triennial, Cornelia Parker, had the ignominy of having her ‘Folkestone Mermaid’ doused with a pot of white paint before opening day. Perhaps the culprits found the nude bronze of aerobics-teaching resident and mum of two too saccharine and comfy on her rocky outcrop (as did I), or maybe they knew that the original Copenhagen ‘Little Mermaid’ is famous for attracting repeated acts of vandalism (mainly ritual beheading, first carried out by a situationist artist in 1964). Either way, this drunken, or more likely, teen-tearaway protest proves that no amount of community engagement or clever referencing – the Little Mermaid’s creator Hans Christian Andersen once visited Folkestone and HG Wells wrote a short story called ‘The Sea Lady’ while living there – can alchemically turn an art idea into cast-iron public popularity.
Instead, it’s the uncertainty of encountering other times and places that makes this cultural scavenger hunt worth the daytrip, especially for us outsiders. Folkestone barely registers as you visit Charles Avery’s ‘Sea Monster’ splayed on the library floor – fictionally, it’s from the shallows off the Qoro-qoros coast of the artist’s ongoing ‘Island’ fantasy, but actually, it’s a taxidermied hybrid of llama, wallaby, snake and horse. Meddlesome Ruth Ewan has decimalised ten clockfaces in prominent places, adopting the shortlived ‘Revolutionary Time’ favoured by the French Republic of 1793 and so frustrating any attempt to ‘read’ your surroundings. Norwegian artist AK Dolven has transported the aforementioned bell from its sixteenth-century tower in Leicestershire, where it was decommissioned, to the bleak seafront as a beacon of hope or transmitter of the past.
The successful works aren’t all about wishing you weren’t here, but the overlap in subject matter between the 19 projects does veer from the merely infectious – such as two very different but complimentary meditations on the plight of refugees by figure modeller Paloma Varga Weisz and filmmaker Nikolaj Larsen – to the downright similar. Especially, that is, in the case of Hew Locke’s colourful fleet of schooners, trawlers and junks floating above a church nave, which take the same inspiration from religious Brazilian and Portuguese votive offerings as Tonico Lemos Auad’s good-luck charms for fishermen, installed in the harbour mouth.
When looking to the triennial’s future, just how many seafaring metaphors can one town handle? When will site-specific references to the Napoleonic defence towers, soldiers leaving for World War I and Folkestone’s former glory as the English Riviera wear thin? Perhaps this is why principal curator Andrea Schlieker is moving on – despite presiding over two very accomplished editions – and why her title ‘A Million Miles From Home’ could be both one of longing and lament. My only advice to the next incumbent in three years’ time, is to throw any careful balancing act between pleasing the punters and the pundits to the wind. Build it and they’ll come, and if they don’t like it, then, to further mangle the words attributed to one of France’s last monarchs (who was admittedly as temporally short-sighted as the revolutionaries who replaced her): ‘Let them eat cake’.
The 2011 Folkestone Triennial ‘A Million Miles From Home’ continues at various venues until September 25 2011.