LIZZIE SYKES is the fifth artist to take part in Mottisfont’s artists’ residency programme, A Place for Art.

The two year programme showcases the work of six artists-in-residence, each of whom has created a piece of art that responds to Mottisfont’s unique setting and stories, and involves the local community.

Lizzie creates site specific works, collaborating with dancers and performers to explore human movement as a response to different spaces.

To make her work for Mottisfont, Lizzie has worked with contemporary dancers Louise Tanoto and Cathy Seago, ‘Mind the Gap’ (a group of older performers based in Salisbury), and Mottisfont staff and volunteers.

‘This residency came to be about the physicality of how bodies appropriate and move within these very particular spaces, both inside and outdoors,’ Lizzie says. ‘It was a sensual and tactile experience – Mottisfont is full of textures, like the tree bark that so many of us are drawn to touch, or the smooth wood inside the house. I’ve translated that into live forms and movement.’

The funding for the project has come from Arts Council England.

Photographs of this project by Gina Dearden will also be on display, along with a documentary film about the creative process and what the project meant to the participants from Mind the Gap.

Are You There shows a single performer, Louise Tanoto, alone in the house. Lizzie was fascinated by the sections of medieval architecture that are half-hidden all over Mottisfont’s house. ‘You open a cupboard door in the dining room and there’s a completely intact arch – it’s amazing, almost like seeing a bone in a body.’

‘I started to think about what you might do if you were in this house on your own, bound to the place, almost literally part of the furniture or fabric of the house. How might we respond physically to the place, just with our bodies, if no one was watching?’ Lizzie Sykes’ work is on display until 5 July.

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