Spitfire Works: The Duke's Garden

In the past few years, many art opportunities dried up, especially if they entailed a live audience. We saw festivals postpone then cancel their cultural art and music events all around the world. That's when people like us get really get creative, and sometimes it works.

Burning Man cancelled two of its live annual burns, committing to trying it on a virtual platform. Nothing like the real interactions though, and we all know it.. but somewhere in there, new connections where forged, affording artists like myself unconventional venues to show and sell their work in. Out of these new alliances formed an exhibit called Radical Horizons, the Art of Burning Man at Chatsworth. And that is how the Flybrary got itself onto a truck, then a container ship and then to a garden in the Dales of Derbyshire, England.

This is the photo from the Chatsworth website...

It is on exhibit at the Chatsworth House, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Derbyshire. The Duke is an art collector, and academic and can be heard and seen in many interviews with contemporary artists such as Kehinde Wiley, worth checking out here.

The estate and gardens date back to 1549, in the sole hands of the Cavendish family. The house and its gardens have changed significantly from each generation of Dukes and Duchesses, some being more intent on designing the rolling hills, moving the river and planting a lavish gardens, others collecting the cutting-edge art of the times, like Rembrandt's, Picasso's and and neoclassical sculptures which are of course now national treasures.

Christian has a great in-depth blogpost on the artwork at the Chatsworth House for view here.

The modern meets the classical in the gardens as well, with sculptures and architecture all around. Above is the Flybrary as it arrived at the estate.

The Chatsworth House is magnificent, in a royal estate kind of way, everything over the top, similar to Versailles in Paris. It contains a plethera of artwork; paintings, sculptures, furniture, tapestries, all depicting a time past, a cultural historical saga of Colonial Britain. It also, to my amazement, is home to some of the most modern invigorating art of this time, completely interspersed with the old works. As you walk room to room you see the old with the new, fitting together perfectly, to tell the story of the world past and present. It's truly exciting to see a collection as diverse and relatable.

On the 105 acres of rolling hills, trees and the winding river Derwent, the estate opens its property to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. I arrived with my family, and a star crew of three to meet the Flybrary in March.

We spent the next week, setting up the Flybrary with the competent help of many Chatsworth crew, and joined several other Burning Man art teams, artists and coordinators for dinner and drinks in the evenings at a local Pub. It was as amazing as it sounds.

There was a bit of a post pandemic adjustment we all had to undergo to learn to be around so many people and speak so much without completely succumbing to anxiety. Turns out the world is still moving fast, and jumping back on to the social merry-go-round can feel a bit clumsy. I think we did ok.

My crew was truly a joy, not only to see again after many years but to work with such well tempered able bodied people is an honor. Of course they are all my good friends as well, amongst the few people I would want to be with at the end of the world as we know it.

Shout out to my crew: Christian and Kodiak for having my back, Terril and Brian- of course you two have common history!!, and Cedar for being game to never ending crazy far flung adventures.

The true Northern English weather in March...

The Flybrary now stands, overlooking the beautiful river Derwent, inviting the public with inquisitive eyes, gazing upwards as its thoughts and dreams fly out into the wind.