Art / luke jerram
The Impossible Garden opens in Stoke Bishop
Luke Jerram is midway through giving an impromptu tour of a dozen of his sculptures now on display at the University of Bristol’s Botanic Garden in Stoke Bishop. He has already sat on a glitching bench and is now encouraging people to stare not at, but around, a circular optical illusion.
“For me, this is an opportunity to play around with ideas,” he says as we continue the tour. “It’s one thing for ideas to be in a sketchbook or on a computer screen, but there’s something about physically trying something, to look at it, to see what the public make of it.”
Jerram continues his tour, pointing out a pixelated girl sitting in a tree, more circular optical illusions, a hidden surprise within a white cube and a sculpture that is almost invisible when viewed from a certain angle.
is needed now More than ever
The artist, best known for the Park Street water slide and the street piano project that began in Bristol and has since been enjoyed around the world, is refreshingly candid about these sculptures, many of which are work-in-progress pieces.
“It kind of works and it kind of doesn’t,” he says about an out-of-focus sculpture of what looks like a visitor to the garden with a large backpack.
Another sculpture is what Jerram calls “graffiti in the landscape” – red paint spelling out the question, ‘Is this red?’ on the side of a hedge – which being red/green colourblind, Jerram himself is not able to see.
“I was spraying it through the stencil and I couldn’t see what I was doing,” he laughs.
Special glasses that enhance colour can be tried on close to Is This Red?
The Impossible Garden is a collaboration between Jerram, Bristol Vision Institute and the Botanic Garden, with the aim of using the sculptures to spark debate about how we see, and how visual impairments can affect our perception of the world around us.
Jerram was artist-in-residence at the Bristol Eye Hospital, and his sculptures have come out of his time spent with visually-impaired children and the research of the Bristol Vision Institute.
When viewed from further away, we are unable to see the individual blocks that make up Pixel Girl
“You realise that everybody’s vision is unique,” he explains about the nine-month residency. “Lots of these artworks relate to perception in some way or another.
“I love making artworks that leave the public to animate something, like the Park Street slide or the street pianos. For me, it’s what is happening between the object and the viewer that makes something interesting.”
Upon Reflection is Jerram’s nod to the UK’s current state of flux
The Invisible Garden is at the Botanic Garden, Stoke Park Road, from July 13 to November 25. For more information, visit www.bristol.ac.uk/botanic-garden/events/2018/the-impossible-garden.html
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