GUEST POST: Inside Out Dorset 2025
INSIDE OUT DORSET
Friday 12 – Sunday 21 September
Moors Valley Country Park and Forest
Town Quay, Christchurch
Summerhouse Hill, Yeovil
Corfe Castle
Weymouth
FREE
Catalan artists Eva Marichalar-Freixa and Jordi Duran i Roldós have been in Corfe Castle last week creating their forthcoming show We Fear at Sandy Hill Arts as part of Inside Out Dorset, the biennial festival of international outdoor arts.
Addressing global events – and possibly in response to Dorset’s county motto Who’s Afear’d – We Fear probes our innate fear of change and longing to preserve the past.
“In Sandy Hill Arts and its surroundings every corner speaks of change and transformation, converting heritage into new possibilities,” explained Eva and Jordi on a visit to Swanage Railway to catch a train to Corfe Castle where the station is adjacent to Sandy Hill Arts.
“This idea is the trigger of the whole episode.”
Working with Rohan Gotobed from acclaimed local theatre company Dorsetborn, We Fear is a dynamic, site specific promenade piece for Sandy Hill Arts as part of a weekend of performances by Catalan artists in Corfe Castle on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 September.
In the village hall car park, Poi by Cie D’es Tro finds the incredible world champion spinning top juggler Guillem Vizcaíno exploring different types of wood, shapes and support points that have allowed him to create personal and special baldufas (tops).
Staged in the grounds of St Edward’s Church, Arrels by Toc de Fusta is a family-friendly participatory installation, a playful experience with 16 interactive games and structures that serve as creative reinterpretations of specific cultural traditions from around the world, sharing not only their essence but also their history and character.
Idiòfona is artist Joan Català’s invitation to spectators at the National Trust-managed Castle, where admission is free as part of national Heritage Open Days, to create an idiophone, a large sound installation/musical instrument that plays by vibration in an ode to the pleasure of shared experience.
And overseeing it all will be the Consequences giant, a huge temporary artwork that will make its home on the motte of Corfe Castle itself. Essentially, a new Giant for Dorset, it has been created as part of Nature Calling, an inspirational nationwide arts project to connect people with their local natural landscapes, and has been made by artist Becca Gill’s Radical Ritual company with the input of local community groups, some of which took part in a vast game of Consequences, the collaborative creative game in which participants contribute to a single artwork without seeing the previous contributions before its completion.
Becca and her team worked with local communities to investigate Dorset folk traditions, surrealist art-making and collaborative storytelling in order to create this new mythical creature, while Dorset National Landscape commissioned writer Louisa Adjoa Parker’s new poem ‘This Patch of Land’, inspired by the Dorset landscape, has been incorporated into Bridport-born avant-pop composer Douglas Dare’s specially commissioned soundtrack.
Inside Out Dorset will see four other locations transformed by magical art and dramatic interventions connected by themes of Nature, Landscape and Climate.
River of Hope will see an installation of up to 80 flags and sails on the Town Quay in Christchurch from 12 to 15 September. The culmination of a national project that uses environmental learning and creative arts practice to help young people express their concerns about the climate crisis, it features the music of Dorset-based rapper/producer Isaiah Dreads. Designs created by students from Gillingham School, QE School in Wimborne, Twynham and The Grange Schools in Christchurch, The Burgate School in Fordingbridge and Ringwood School, working with artist Heidi Steller and poet Matt West, will be shown alongside works made for the Totally Thames festival in partnership with young people from Ethiopia from schools in Addis Ababa and Arbia Minch.
Following its premiere at the National Memorial Arboretum, Dorset artist Lorna Rees’ sound installation Canopy will create a new sound world beneath the trees of Moors Valley Country Park and Forest at Ashley Heath from Saturday 13 September for the duration of Inside Out Dorset. Comprising 24 new sound listening pods inspired by Nature, visitors will literally listen to the trees and hear stories told by people from community groups and local school children in response to the woodland.
The spectacular finale of Inside Out Dorset 2025, Sonnet of Samsara takes place in Weymouth on the evenings of 19 and 20 September. A breathtaking performance by Jayachandran Palazhy of Attakalari Dance in Bengalaru, Charlene Low, and Ali Pretty of Kinetika, sponsored by We Are Weymouth, and part of Portland and Weymouth Towns of Culture, the evolving, immersive experience also marks the conclusion of Beach of Dreams, a nationwide coastal arts festival exploring the unique heritage, cultures and climate futures of our coastlines. As the festival’s final moment, participants will weave their way through Weymouth from the town centre to the beach as a living artwork in motion.