22 MARCH 2004 NEWS RELEASE No: 6600

Visitors to the High Lodge Centre in Thetford Forest are intrigued by the new addition to this ever popular tourist attraction. A sculpture, ‘Core Sample, Matrix Revealed,’ standing twelve metres high by artist Julienne Dolphin Wilding is currently being completed and represents a unique vision of how a geological core sample would appear as it was drawn out from the ground.

This innovative arts project, commissioned by Forest Enterprise, with the assistance of Commissions East, has been generously funded by the Arts Council England, Forest Heath District Council and Suffolk County Council. The geological core sample and newly landscaped courtyard at High Lodge will be officially launched at an opening ceremony on Wednesday 31st March. Guests will include the funders, Forestry Commission staff, the artist, building contractors and suppliers as well as members of the art world and local dignitaries.

The completed project will be on view to the public from 31st March onwards. For details of opening times at High Lodge Tel: 01842 815434.

Core Sample, Matrix Revealed

Concept
On my research visit to High Lodge Forest Park I went to Grimes Graves an extensive group of Neolithic flint mines. The mines are unique in England comprising over 300 pits and shafts many now in-filled. I was able to visit one of the mines, which is open to the public, and descend the shaft ladder to the bottom of the pit to see the entrances to the access tunnels. I found the whole experience of travelling through the earth intriguing and went back many times, as the substrata are quite visible from the ladder in the shaft. I later went to visit many quarries in Norfolk to study the very distinctive layers of soil distribution in this part of England.

This introduction to the story of the earth through my geological research was both fascinating and absorbing. I was struck by its vastness and at the same time its invisibility. We live on the earth’s surface but are mainly oblivious to what is below us. I felt strongly about bringing the Grimes Graves shaft up to the surface and a geological core sample was an obvious way of doing it.

There is a theme, which runs through all my public artwork and that is a ‘conspiracy to disconcert’. I wish to create illusion and deception in the landscape. The purpose of this conspiracy is to entice the park visitors to look closer, to investigate their surroundings more acutely, and to be more alert. I hope to achieve this by constructing an artwork that acts as a double take: a second look occasioned by surprise.


Stratigraphy of core sample
(As seen from the base)
Soft chalk
Flint layer in chalk rubble
Rough and smooth black flint in chalk sand matrix.
Wall stone flint in pipe clay.
Pale yellowish brown chalk sand, stony high level gravel.
Upper crust flint in strong brown sandy loam
Chalk flour and chalk-sand drift.
Toppings flint in pale yellowish brown sand.
Deer sculls and antlers in pale yellowish brown loamy sand.
Brown slightly humus sands.
Strong brown sandy loam, rabbit burrows and roots.

Construction
Foundation: A ten-ton block of concrete.
Steel inner tube/mast welded onto base plate.
457mm diam.10mm thick 12 metres long.
24 ‘mill stone rings’ mounted onto mast and bedded in with colour co-ordinated mortar joints.
Finished sculpture: 13m high, 11.5m visible. Diam.1m. Total weight 25 tons.

Sub contractors
Geological advisors: John Tomalin, Steve Bowman and Nigel Larkin
Aggregate suppliers: Ian Finlatter, May Gurney and Jim Norman, Frimstone Ltd
Metal work construction: Mick Lewis, Glenn Midson, Brian Scrivener, Amweld Engineering Ltd.
Foundation work: Robert Kybird, Kybird Builders.
Structural engineers: John Farrow, Andrew Firebrace Partnership.
Crane Operator: Anthony Underwood Blankley, Naivette Services Ltd
Van mount platform hoist: Rise Hire.
Cement ‘mixer’: Anthony Fenwick.