For the second year of re:place we were delighted to have selected Philippa Lawrence for the Main Commission, and Flore Gardner and Charles Monkhouse for Intermediate Commissions.

Philippa Lawrence - Main Commission

Philippa said on being awarded the commission, "I wish to engage with Re:place as the vehicle through which to explore boundaries, both natural and man made, and how man affects and changes the environment.  And how ‘we’ respond and relate to landscape, to ‘site’ and to how we orientate ourselves. I have a deep interest in ‘place’ - what it is and how the individual may experience it, actually or psychologically."

"I am interested in the value we place on commodities and goods from a particular place, that place and its natural resources once shaped settlements and ‘work’. Ways of being within a location, which are no longer viable. My initial research has involved ‘a getting to know’ through spending time in Derbyshire – in local museums, with artifacts, maps, books, words, paintings, images, through materials, poetry or stories as a way of orienteering myself."

From this initial research Philippa focussed her work on Swadlincote in South Derbyshire, identifying Maurice Lea Memorial Park as the best site.

Flore Gardner - Intermediate Commission - One M(obe)ile

"Taking one mile as the basic unit of distance while travelling, my project consists of the installation of a soft sculpture, a one-mile long red knitted cord, in different places in Derbyshire. Several different installations of this cord could be envisaged; in urban and rural contexts, inside and out, and connections in between."

The work was installed at Cromford Mill, Strutt's North Mill in Belper, Wirksworth and Melbourne.

Flore also showed photographic work at Ilkeston Festival from 29 June - 3 July alongside a wall drawing residency by Chloe Steele and Tom Hackett's 'Silicone Boys'.

Charles Monkhouse - Intermediate Commission - Meander

Charles is an artist living and working in the Peak District. Meander was a massive light installation, sited in the Hope Valley, and viewed from Surprise View above Hathersage.  It was shown for several evenings in the spring of 2011. The installation recreated an earlier form of the River Derwent, still trapped within its valley sides but floating high above the current valley bottom. The installation was visible at night with up to 200 individual lights.