Private Views Made Public
In her beautifully sensitive work Private Views Made Public, artist Patricia Mackinnon-Day allows us a simultaneous access to six spectacular and previously 'private' panoramas set along the mid-Cheshire Sandstone Ridge over the period of a year. The work was enabled initially by Cheshire County Council's small public art seedfund project called Spaces curated by Ian Banks, and which was then fully commissioned by Habitats & Hillforts.
The classic romantic Idyll of course advocated for the life-affirming charm of such rustic life. They were traditionally created in the style of a short pastoral poem or other artistic work to explore the sense of Arcadia. Nothing much has changed it seems: Private Views Made Public has teased-out a sensitive relationship over time with six local people who had each been granted the 'privilege' of their own personal perspective of the living landscapes overlooking each fort. Using time-lapse filming, and soundscapes by Stuart Borthwick and Tim Dalton, six short films were made by Patricia Mackinnon-Day. These were filmed in stages over 12 months, and investigate and capture, both day and night and across all four seasons, a contemporary framed view of this slowly evolving sense of Idyll - and of course, although perhaps always just out of shot, the key part that 'human activity' has previously held (and in some ways now needs to re-find) in helping sustain such a delicate harmony.
Dr Andrew Deadman, Habitats and Hillforts Chair said:
“This is the first major arts project funded by the Habitats and Hillforts Landscape Partnership Scheme and we are delighted with the outcome. We have also funded major archaeological investigations of four of the Iron Age hillforts on the Sandstone Ridge in an effort to learn more about these 2500 year old structures. There is still much to learn. Patricia’s evocative film brilliantly captures the essence of the hillforts where their surrounding landscape changes with the seasons as it has changed since their construction. Within the landscape the hillforts themselves remain a static, almost timeless, element providing a glimpse into a distant part of our history”