These Passing Things

These Passing Things -

These Passing Things is a visual transformation of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal’s folly buildings and water gardens.

These Passing Things is temporary, bursting upon the landscape with visual exuberance and offering visitors to this unique and extraordinary National Trust site an unforgettable experience.

Originally intended for installation in summer 2020, These Passing Things is supported by Arts Council England [1] and is the latest art commission by Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, aiming to transform the gardens and folly buildings, and contributing to its creative and lively Georgian spirit in a contemporary way.

In total, three different pieces will transform existing historic buildings and landscape:

Drifted - 12 Floating pyramids in the canal – with inspiration taken from a lost pyramid folly.

Bridged – a scarlet contemporary bridge sitting across the river Skell, close to the site of a lost iron bridge from the 18th century.

Spiked - An inflatable artwork which will appear to burst through the columns of the Temple of Piety. This is an occasional piece on display for opening on 10 July and returning on 21 August

The work is inspired by designs for a 16-metre-high funerary pyramid in the water garden. Archive records show this was commissioned by William Aislabie in the 18th century, after his father’s death. Despite scale drawings and detailed costings for the piece, no further mentions it were ever made and no record or evidence exists of this mysterious pyramid ever being built.

The original designers of the Studley Royal water garden, the Aislabie family, created many follies to surprise and delight their 18th century guests. Since 2015 The National Trust at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal have been celebrating these fashionable and whimsical structures and the Georgian water garden they sit within, through its former folly! exhibition series.

Justin Scully, general manager at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, said:

“Studley Royal water garden is a designed landscape; a living work of art. By working with artists, responding to this legacy, we’re helping to bring the water garden to life for our visitors today. We hope that These Passing Things will get our visitors thinking and start a conversation about the connection between the past and the present, whilst offering people a relevant, fresh experience of the Georgian garden.

These colourful and distinctive installations bring to life the spirit of the garden as the original designers intended. And, as their name suggestions, they are temporary installations, and will disappear from the landscape, just as many original follies did.”

The overall thing is identifying with the whole concept of follies - architectural oddities of no specific function other than their visual aesthetic. While over time we may invest them with meaning or stories, at their core they’re just there - large-scale artworks in the landscape, and as an artist that’s what I’ve been interested in for the past 20 years. I’m also interested in the role that follies play in creating focal points in constructed views of the landscape.

Created with investment from Arts Council England and the National Trust, who commissioned this artwork, as part of Trust New Art