By Kim Dhillon

For Part 1 of this article, click here.

What of the art that has been commissioned for this year's inaugural Folkestone Triennial – the art that will be instrumental for changing the way the town is perceived by locals and by outsiders, and thus in the development of Folkestone as masterminded by billionaire philanthropist Roger de Haan?

Many works that are still under wraps, but as an assistant curator I've been working on some of them, and they all take Folkestone as more than just the setting for the exhibition: it's the context, and locals are often the collaborators. Many of the artists were selected not for just their prominence, but for their personal experience and knowledge of the area. The roster includes Tracey Emin (from nearby Margate), Tacita Dean (born 10 miles away), as well as Langlands and Bell and Whitstable-based Adam Chodzko, who makes work around ideas of ritual and local folklore.

Emin didn't want to make a physically domineering work – like so much public art – but something subtle, delicate, and that women especially could relate to. On her site visits, she found items of baby clothing on the beach and in many other places too, like a car park. Perhaps in a poignant reference to Folkestone's high rate of teenage pregnancy, Emin has had the baby clothes cast in bronze, and will be installing them in places they could have been lost: under garden benches, on a set of steps, a train platform.

Artists from further afield are also responding to the local context. American artist Mark Dion researched Folkestone's gull, so often despised and misunderstood as a nuisance pest akin to a rat (or pigeon), nesting in chimneys and foraging in chip wrappers. Seeking to foster greater love of gulls, Dion has developed a Mobile Gull Appreciation Unit, a big booth on wheels in the shape of a gull. Parking around the town, the unwieldy vehicle is a nature-awareness station as much as an artwork.


Mark Dion, sketch for Mobile Gull Appreciation Unit, 2006

Los Angeles-based Pae White, whose practice crosses art and design, will be literally regenerating part of the town with art. Turning her hand to a derelict dog toilet, and making it a piece of what she calls 'landscape theatre', White is designing for Folkestonians a bespoke dog park, fully equipped with areas for climbing, agility training, and LED lights so it can be used at night. Spurred on by the many dog owners she noticed on a site visit, White wanted to create a social space for their elderly owners to congregate.

Tacita Dean crossed the English Channel in a fishing boat along with her 16mm film crew as a way to look at what hems Folkestone in, and in so doing, defines it. Christian Boltanski sees the Channel as a wall, and his practice of late is concerned with love, longing, and loss. Folkestone harbour has plenty of this: in the First World War, it was the departure point for tens of thousands of troops as they left for battle in the trenches. Boltanski asked locals to read soldiers' love letters back home, and will install them as sound installations on the benches along the Leas, a seaside promenade. Like Emin, Boltanski was concerned with the monolithic proportions of many public art commissions, and wanted to make something ephemeral, almost invisible, rather than riddling the town with 'big' art works (something that might become even more of a concern as the town accumulates fresh new sculptures every three years). Of all the Folkestone-orientated projects, White's dogpark can most clearly be seen in the line of regeneration, though I don't think that is her point, but merely a coincidence. All however have a consideration for making something locals will appreciate or enjoy as ideas, stories, or experiences as much as art.

A weakness of the Triennial though seems to be the lack of debate about questions of regeneration, reconstruction, and building up to start again. The local press is nervous, sometimes sceptical of the Creative Foundation. The 16 April edition of local daily Your Shepway had the front page headline: 'Is the Creative Quarter Over?' This was pretty troubling, given that the regeneration has hardly even taken hold yet. The story referenced businesses in the Creative Quarter suffering with lack of footfall and support to sustain them. It's true that the regeneration of Tontine Street hasn't won the best will of their tenants: there are grumblings about lack of natural light in studios, no wireless internet in the premises, and lack of business support and trade. This has led to a feeling of unfulfilled prophecy, and a faint cynicism within certain pockets of the town. Perhaps de Haan is spreading the Creative Foundation too thin, aiming to take on too many projects at once without having time to properly germinate the first before the second takes seed.

Do the locals want art? Opinion is divided at the moment, with local organisations such as the Dramatics Society and the History Centre becoming active collaborators along with local businesses in some Triennial projects. Few people, in fact none that I've encountered, have been openly negative to the project, but as often with contemporary art, there does seem to be a general sense of 'it's not for me'. This is to be expected given the unknowns at play and the vaguely threatening mystery that contemporary art still presents to most people. There's never been a public art project on this scale in Britain with so many new commissions happening at the same time, one with such a big budget and bigger expectations. The worst failure of the Triennial when it opens would be to provoke nothing but ambivalence from the locals. Let's hope that despite being British, Folkestone speaks up for herself in June.
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Kim Dhillon writes on art and design and lives in London. See her previous blogs:
Folkestone Triennial, Part 1: Great Expectations
Parental Guidance: Kenneth and Mary Martin in the De La Warr Pavilion
Parental Guidance: On Tour in Margate with Mum and Dad