If you ever have the reason or opportunity to venture into the idyllic
countryside of northwestern Wales, it is worthwhile making your way to a unique work of art hidden within
the natural landscape there. Within their own “arboretum,” a densely wooded property on a steep incline,
the artist couple Heather and Ivan Morison have constructed a wooden cabin in crystalline
form called Fantasy Island. Marrying the geodesic shapes of 1970s utopian architecture
and do-it-yourself handicraft, Pleasure Island is the sister structure of their
installation at the Welsh Pavilion of the 2007 Venice Biennale.
Modeled
on a rock the couple discovered while traveling in the American West, the structure is representative
of the Morisons’ interests in the natural and the fantastical. Many of their works have been based on
their roamings through the world’s ecosystems, and they have collected flowers in Romania, recorded
bird calls in Ecuador, spent a day with an ice-fisherman near the Arctic and transplanted a Russian
taiga to the town of Sheffield (see their website for an excellent collection of sound works!). Nestled
into the side of a wooded hill, Fantasy Island is both a tribute to and an ironic
re-examination of 1970s counter culture and its New Age outgrowth. In the structure, colored triangular
windows suggest an almost sacred feeling, while a rustic wooden stove makes the cabin a warm refuge.
At the same time, its craggy form suggests an alien body that has made a meteoric landing in the forest.
Beyond
a celebration of utopian ideals or hippie lifestyles, the Morisons’ work pushes notions of going green
and alternative culture into the realm of alternate reality, largely through their interest in the literary
genre of science fiction. Not only did they title recordings of the creaking trees in their arboretum
Hothouse, after the sci-fi novel by Brian Aldiss in which a single tree has colonized
the planet and humans have devolved to a form of fungus, but they have even penned a science fiction
novel themselves. In their willing embrace of more outrageous versions of post-human existence, they
would describe themselves as apocalyptical instead of ecological artists, although their polite humor
and humble activities, like gardening and felling trees, seem to locate them more firmly on the side
of hope – as does their chapel-like hideaway hidden in the heart of the Welsh forest.
Link:
www.morison.info
