Anya Gallaccio's installation connected Camden Art Centre's garden to the galleries, bringing the outdoors inside.
The work was firmly rooted in the site, as if nature has broken into the space pushing through the gallery floor and walls. Using organic transient materials, Gallaccio’s intervention is impressive in its visual impact and physicality.
Gallaccio is one of the leading British sculptors of her generation. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003, she graduated from Goldsmiths in 1988 and in the same year exhibited in Damien Hirst’s ‘Freeze’, the exhibition that brought together a generation of Young British Artists for the first time. Differing from her contemporaries, Gallacio’s practice has always challenged the permanency of the art object, making works which are often site specific and transient.
Gallaccio’s work is concerned with nature, beauty and decay; she uses ephemeral materials to refer to the cyclic nature of life and death. Central to her practice is the transformation of materials or matter, either through the passing of time or by a natural or applied process. The works are often in a permanent state of flux, and are displayed in a variety of settings. This installation’s multi-sensory and experimental elements encourage a tactile, personal engagement.