Tania Kovats Museum of the White Horse |
Since 2005 Tania Kovats has been provided with supervised and informed access to the Uffington White Horse, one of Britain's most cherished and mysterious monuments, and to the records and finds deriving from its most recent excavation in the early 1990s. During this period she has been looking at the sculptural and archival value of archaeological activities around the site and how the many processes of archaeology contribute to our ever-changing understanding of landscape and place. Tania's unashamedly poetic response to her findings is the Museum of the White Horse, which comprises a converted horsebox whose contents include a collection of archaeological, aesthetic and vernacular objects and artefacts investigating our historic and ongoing fascination with the Uffington White Horse and with white horses more generally. The Museum of the White Horse examines and interprets our relationship with landscape and place and provokes a reconsideration of museums as institutional spaces. Tania Kovats is a British artist whose primarily sculptural practice is an exploration of landscape and how it is mediated. Since being appointed the Henry Moore Drawing Fellow in Bristol in 2004 she has become increasingly interested in drawing as an extension of her sculptural activities. In 2005 she published The Drawing Book. A survey of drawing: the primary means of expression. Tania's thinking about the Uffington White Horse sits at the intersection of her interests in drawing and landscape. The Museum of the White Horse will be launched on 10 and 11 August outside Peer in London during the Shoreditch Festival before showings at White Horse Hill (Uffington), Uffington White Horse Show (Fawler), Vale and Downland Museum (Wantage), University Museum of Natural History (Oxford), County Hall Museum (Abingdon), Natural History Museum (London) and the Oxfordshire Museum (Woodstock) together with presentations at Cheltenham racecourse during the October meeting and at Newbury racecourse to coincide with the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup. The Museum of the White Horse has been commissioned by the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art in collaboration with the School of Archaeology and Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and with the support of Arts Council England, English Heritage, Leverhulme Trust, National Trust, Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford Exhibition Services, Tom Brown's School Museum, Vale of White Horse District Council, Van Houten Fund and the White Horse Brewery. The Museum of the White Horse is part of Oxfordshire 2007, a year of special events, festivals and anniversaries celebrating the county's millennium. For further information please visit www.museumofthewhitehorse.org.uk or contact Paul Bonaventura on 01865 276940 or 07899 754179. |