FourthLand
Artists weaving new myths of land and people
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FourthLand – the land within
the land beyond
A vessel, a place, a feeling
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Fourthland is a place and a practice envisioned by artists Isik and Eva, as a way to delve into interconnectedness. Together revisiting notions of the sacred, the poetics of object and craft and the mysticism of the subconscious.
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Through creating artworks across mediums of sculpture, installation, performance, film, social - and ceremonial practice the work becomes a vessel for transforming exchange - producing new myths between land and people as an antidote to disillusionment and modes of separation held in modern society.
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Fourthland use their process led research and long-standing commitment to social practice to reposition marginalised knowledge in order to form new modes of social and environmental consciousness with diverse communities and cultural groups.
Since 2008 the work has sought to merge art and life to collectively develop the myths that are essential to enchant and reposition forms of kinship to foster a deeper connection to the land and each other. These methods produce surprising and transformative collaborative projects, choreographed rituals, sound work, storytelling and improvised sessions that weave together human and non-human communication.
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Isik and Eva immerse themselves in making, constructing objects through a range of sculptural processes with natural materials. This includes a contemporary re-positioning of traditional and nomadic craft skills such as felt making, skin curing, stitching, waxing and natural dying alongside a range of laborious mending processes. They believe in the importance of bringing back 'the crafted' and 'the natural' into the contemporary art and social context, emphasising the importance of' being in process' and 'deep time'. Through this, preserving the knowledge and ritual passed down through the hands. Something they have come to call 'Handheld knowledge'.
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The objects they make become their artistic tools. Often made over a long period of time, with repetitive and durational labour, they are imbued with a sacred weight that evokes qualities of care and universal knowledge - that of the domestic and the cosmic. The objects allow meetings to take place between unexpected groups of people, and as the objects are passed from hand to hand, they archive the encounter and re-tell the stories of our time.
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Fourthland is a concept and approach to working in ‘collective practice'.
The practice grows like streams, honouring the feminine principle and alternative societies. The work creates a shared ‘landing-place’ that forms new myths about land and people – Together, apart and with others, Isik and Eva create, perform and hold unique projects, holding a place in creative production that can be occupied temporarily or permanently, a place to use the creative process in the broadest sense. A place for art practice and everyday life. At its largest Fourthland is a whole community.
Video in collaboration with Ale Tarraf
Fourthland projects have been cultivated through 10 years of social practice with Land and People on The Wenlock Barn Estate in London, alongside creating Interruptions, Performances and Nomadic Residencies that prompt deep playfulness, curiosity and ecological connection. Their Exhibitions and Performances take on multi layered networks with a series of Documents as a trace of the experience.
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Over the years Fourthland have created relationships with a variety of national and international collaborators, communities, estates and multidisciplinary teams including: climate scientists, psychologists, architects, shamanic practitioners, herbalists, anthropologists, urban researchers and filmmakers.
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Methods of working take inspiration from process-based psychology and yogic practice alongside in-depth studies into diverse cultures, astrology, indigenous and alternative societies and the village-scale. Isik and Eva graduated in Fine Art from the CASS School of Art in 2011 and have both completed additional trainings in yoga, sound healing, embodied movement and shamanic practice, weaving these teachings into the creative concepts of the work and intuitive listening to the land.
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Recent exhibitions and performances include Kestle Barton, PEER, SPACE, Somerset House, Arnolfini, Barbican, Errant Bodies, UCL, South London Gallery, with projects in UK and internationally. Recent reviews include: Caroline Douglas, director of Contemporary Arts Society
Cherry Smyth, Art Monthly and Tanya Harrod in Crafts Magazine.
FourthLand – the land within
the land beyond
A vessel, a place, a feeling
​
​
Fourthland is a place and a practice envisioned by artists Isik and Eva, as a way to delve into interconnectedness. Together revisiting notions of the sacred, the poetics of object and craft and the mysticism of the subconscious.
​
Through creating artworks across mediums of sculpture, installation, performance, film, social - and ceremonial practice the work becomes a vessel for transforming exchange - producing new myths between land and people as an antidote to disillusionment and modes of separation held in modern society.
​
Fourthland use their process led research and long-standing commitment to social practice to reposition marginalised knowledge in order to form new modes of social and environmental consciousness with diverse communities and cultural groups.
Since 2008 the work has sought to merge art and life to collectively develop the myths that are essential to enchant and reposition forms of kinship to foster a deeper connection to the land and each other. These methods produce surprising and transformative collaborative projects, choreographed rituals, sound work, storytelling and improvised sessions that weave together human and non-human communication.
​
Isik and Eva immerse themselves in making, constructing objects through a range of sculptural processes with natural materials. This includes a contemporary re-positioning of traditional and nomadic craft skills such as felt making, skin curing, stitching, waxing and natural dying alongside a range of laborious mending processes. They believe in the importance of bringing back 'the crafted' and 'the natural' into the contemporary art and social context, emphasising the importance of' being in process' and 'deep time'. Through this, preserving the knowledge and ritual passed down through the hands. Something they have come to call 'Handheld knowledge'.
​​
The objects they make become their artistic tools. Often made over a long period of time, with repetitive and durational labour, they are imbued with a sacred weight that evokes qualities of care and universal knowledge - that of the domestic and the cosmic. The objects allow meetings to take place between unexpected groups of people, and as the objects are passed from hand to hand, they archive the encounter and re-tell the stories of our time.
​
​
​
Fourthland is a concept and approach to working in ‘collective practice'.
The practice grows like streams, honouring the feminine principle and alternative societies. The work creates a shared ‘landing-place’ that forms new myths about land and people – Together, apart and with others, Isik and Eva create, perform and hold unique projects, holding a place in creative production that can be occupied temporarily or permanently, a place to use the creative process in the broadest sense. A place for art practice and everyday life. At its largest Fourthland is a whole community.
Video in collaboration with Ale Tarraf
Fourthland projects have been cultivated through 10 years of social practice with Land and People on The Wenlock Barn Estate in London, alongside creating Interruptions, Performances and Nomadic Residencies that prompt deep playfulness, curiosity and ecological connection. Their Exhibitions and Performances take on multi layered networks with a series of Documents as a trace of the experience.
​
Over the years Fourthland have created relationships with a variety of national and international collaborators, communities, estates and multidisciplinary teams including: climate scientists, psychologists, architects, shamanic practitioners, herbalists, anthropologists, urban researchers and filmmakers.
​
Methods of working take inspiration from process-based psychology and yogic practice alongside in-depth studies into diverse cultures, astrology, indigenous and alternative societies and the village-scale. Isik and Eva graduated in Fine Art from the CASS School of Art in 2011 and have both completed additional trainings in yoga, sound healing, embodied movement and shamanic practice, weaving these teachings into the creative concepts of the work and intuitive listening to the land.
​
Recent exhibitions and performances include Kestle Barton, PEER, SPACE, Somerset House, Arnolfini, Barbican, Errant Bodies, UCL, South London Gallery, with projects in UK and internationally. Recent reviews include: Caroline Douglas, director of Contemporary Arts Society
Cherry Smyth, Art Monthly and Tanya Harrod in Crafts Magazine.
FourthLand – the land within
the land beyond
A vessel, a place, a feeling
​
​
Fourthland is a place and a practice envisioned by artists Isik and Eva, as a way to delve into interconnectedness. Together revisiting notions of the sacred, the poetics of object and craft and the mysticism of the subconscious.
​
Through creating artworks across mediums of sculpture, installation, performance, film, social - and ceremonial practice the work becomes a vessel for transforming exchange - producing new myths between land and people as an antidote to disillusionment and modes of separation held in modern society.
​
Fourthland use their process led research and long-standing commitment to social practice to reposition marginalised knowledge in order to form new modes of social and environmental consciousness with diverse communities and cultural groups.
Since 2008 the work has sought to merge art and life to collectively develop the myths that are essential to enchant and reposition forms of kinship to foster a deeper connection to the land and each other. These methods produce surprising and transformative collaborative projects, choreographed rituals, sound work, storytelling and improvised sessions that weave together human and non-human communication.
​
Isik and Eva immerse themselves in making, constructing objects through a range of sculptural processes with natural materials. This includes a contemporary re-positioning of traditional and nomadic craft skills such as felt making, skin curing, stitching, waxing and natural dying alongside a range of laborious mending processes. They believe in the importance of bringing back 'the crafted' and 'the natural' into the contemporary art and social context, emphasising the importance of' being in process' and 'deep time'. Through this, preserving the knowledge and ritual passed down through the hands. Something they have come to call 'Handheld knowledge'.
​​
The objects they make become their artistic tools. Often made over a long period of time, with repetitive and durational labour, they are imbued with a sacred weight that evokes qualities of care and universal knowledge - that of the domestic and the cosmic. The objects allow meetings to take place between unexpected groups of people, and as the objects are passed from hand to hand, they archive the encounter and re-tell the stories of our time.
​
​
​
Video in collaboration with Ale Tarraf
Video in collaboration with Rosalind Fowler
Fourthland is a concept and approach to working in ‘collective practice'.
The practice grows like streams, honouring the feminine principle and alternative societies. The work creates a shared ‘landing-place’ that forms new myths about land and people – Together, apart and with others, Isik and Eva create, perform and hold unique projects, holding a place in creative production that can be occupied temporarily or permanently, a place to use the creative process in the broadest sense. A place for art practice and everyday life. At its largest Fourthland is a whole community.
Fourthland projects have been cultivated through 10 years of social practice with Land and People on The Wenlock Barn Estate in London, alongside creating Interruptions, Performances and Nomadic Residencies that prompt deep playfulness, curiosity and ecological connection. Their Exhibitions and Performances take on multi layered networks with a series of Documents as a trace of the experience.
​
Over the years Fourthland have created relationships with a variety of national and international collaborators, communities, estates and multidisciplinary teams including: climate scientists, psychologists, architects, shamanic practitioners, herbalists, anthropologists, urban researchers and filmmakers.
​
Methods of working take inspiration from process-based psychology and yogic practice alongside in-depth studies into diverse cultures, astrology, indigenous and alternative societies and the village-scale. Isik and Eva graduated in Fine Art from the CASS School of Art in 2011 and have both completed additional trainings in yoga, sound healing, embodied movement and shamanic practice, weaving these teachings into the creative concepts of the work and intuitive listening to the land.
​
Recent exhibitions and performances include Kestle Barton, PEER, SPACE, Somerset House, Arnolfini, Barbican, Errant Bodies, UCL, South London Gallery, with projects in UK and internationally. Recent reviews include: Caroline Douglas, director of Contemporary Arts Society
Cherry Smyth, Art Monthly and Tanya Harrod in Crafts Magazine.
“I was greatly impressed by BREADROCK at PEER. Fourthland carried out a rich and remarkable long term collaboration with the culturally diverse communities of the Wenlock Barn estate and the resulting exhibition is testament to this. Both the film and the sculptural installation are also impressively original artworks in their own right. The many strands of shared making, knowledge and ritualistic activities which unfolded over this ten year period resulted in the creation of powerful visceral objects in a multitude of media which have now been transformed into magical pieces of sculpture. Similarly, the 16mm film is much more than a document of an exceptional community project. It pays tribute to a place and its people with a poetic richness and texture that is utterly captivating and one of a kind.” – Louisa Buck
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Craig Bamford of SASA Works
Artist, Designer, Maker and Architect. Craig established SASAWorks in 2009 as a natural progression from two decades of making that explored materials through metal work, carpentry, artistry and several self-build projects. Craig has been collaborating within Fourthland since the beginning supporting FreeSpace projects and the production of collaborative object pieces for our exhibitions.
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Ale Tarraf
Filmmaker and photographer. He works with often marginalised and anthropological subjects, exploring the poetics of time, culture and place through cinema. Ale has been collaborating with Fourthland since 2014, creating video documentation of performances and collaborative video and sound pieces alongside photographic works in response to our performances and as unique artworks in 35mm and Medium Format Film.
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