What Cannot Be Turned Aside

Installation view, Danielle Arnaud, Oct 2012

Public access to land, where it exists, has been hard-fought with ongoing skirmishes to establish rights-of-way to our woodlands, moorland and coastline. During a period as artist-in-residence at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2010-11, artist Simon Pope researched these issues in relation to the Bretton Park estate, walking and talking with various stakeholders’ along the many pathways which cross the park. His new film, What Cannot Be Turned Aside is an exploration of how we negotiate access to land and the strong impulses which are at play during this process. Within the frame we see a horse and rider negotiating their relationship with the land, walking together across an open field. Over the course of three ‘takes’ they advance towards the camera, moving within its frame, sometimes accepting its limits and at others jostling to break free from its constraints.

The title of the film is drawn from David Bohm’s influential book, On Dialogue (1996) in which dialogue seen as key to achieving harmony within a complex, unstable world. However, Bohm also recognises that the negotiation which precedes dialogue is placed at risk by our deepest prejudices and assumptions - those things that are deemed a necessity and “which cannot turned aside”. It is this point of conflict, between the impulses brought about from necessity and the entering into the ‘open space’ of dialogue, that Pope highlights within this work. The horse and rider’s attempt to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, reminiscent of the ‘horse whispering’ techniques of Join-Up. Yet the horse’s instinct to run free constantly threatens to disrupt the hoped-for moment of mutual, harmonious walking together.

This film features horses and riders drawn from the West Bretton area and is shot near the former gallops on Longside, which once also staged an annual horse fair. What Cannot Be Turned Aside is funded by Arts Council England and will be screened at the Danielle Arnaud gallery in London and at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in October 2012.