The Dukes Wood Project was an art programme curated by Ordinary Culture running from January until September 2013 and took place at the Duke’s Wood Nature Reserve near Eakring in Nottinghamshire. The project developed through an artist residency programme, in which 9 artists were invited to spend time at the wood at different points throughout the year. This enabled each practitioner to undertake an intimate engagement with place and a deep level of enquiry. Duke’s Wood Project is the result of over a year of such study.

Duke’s Wood is a site of distinct historical and environmental significance. The wood is located on the U.K’s first onshore oilfield, now a nature reserve supporting a rich eco-system. Once a ‘top secret’ military installation, it is now a site of reconciliation; the wood expresses cooperation between two practices that might normally be considered ideological opposites – oil production and conservation.

The Duke’s Wood Project artists published blog posts relating to their initial ideas for the project in the run up to a re-curation and re-design of the Duke’s Wood Oil Museum by Kobberling and Kaltwasser.

© Ordinary Culture (Sam West and Aaron Juneau) 2013

Duke’s Wood Artists

Joanna Dacombe – Duke’s Wood Learning Coordinator

Alec Finlay - Duke’s Wood Residency Artist

I.B.I (Institute for Boundary Interactions) - Duke’s Wood Research Residency Artists

Kobberling & Kaltwasser – Duke’s Wood Project Special Commission

Alison Lloyd – Duke’s Wood Walker in Residence

Anne-Mie Melis - Duke’s Wood Research Residency Artist

Dan Robinson (Mud Office) - Duke’s Wood Research Residency Artist

Stephen Turner – Duke’s Wood Research Residency Artist

Louise K. Wilson - Duke’s Wood Research Residency Artist

Stephen Turner contrasted currently undesirable oil production around the world with the truly essential oil of local plants. He wished to prepare enchantments based on local flora to make oils that are restorative of our emotional connection to the land; connecting the 'Industrial plant' (hardware like the nodding donkeys) with growing plant-life. He produced a 'trysting potion' to encourage visitors toward a love of the woodland and collected specimens of 45 different species of wild flower (dried in vials) and mapped their locations for permanent installation as a herbarium in the Duke’s Wood Oil Museum.

Post Script

The Oil Museum and visitor Centre in the heart of the nature reserve is now a decaying empty husk as nature takes control when people retreated from