A giant head, constructed from timber that was conceived as a watcher, an imagined presence who has observed the passing occupation of the landscape over past millennia and seen how the environment has dramatically changed during the last one hundred years with the coming of the forest and in more recently times, the lake.
Having originally been an interactive work, where visitors could enter through the mouth and climb a small staircase to look out onto the landscape through the eyes, the Forest Head has moved onto the next stage in a life dictated by nature and the environment.
During the extreme strong winds of storm Arwen in November 2021, four large trees blew over behind the sculpture hitting it and making a large hole in the head that resulted in structural damage so bad that it was impossible to repair.
When the sculpture was originally created the artists considered what might happen to it in the future, deliberately making the work from only glued and pegged timber with no metal involved, so that eventually, it could be allowed to decay back into the forest leaving nothing behind.
The sculpture you see now has been slightly modified from the original by closing up the mouth to prevent public access to the now unstable interior. It will now be allowed to decay naturally in place, a process that will probably take at least 50 more years before all signs of it ever being there have finally disappeared.
OS Map Ref. NY 657905
What 3 Words: behalf.repair.systems
Silvas Capitalis is situated on the north shore Lakeside Way about 3 miles/5 km, from Kielder Castle. A walk will take approximately 1 hour. From Kielder Castle, follow the signs to the Lakeside Way (north shore). You will cross Kielder Viaduct and will pass Gowanburn farm enroute to signed path that leads to the sculpture. While the route is accessible to all, please note that wheelchair users should take care on the short access path.
Silvas Capitalis can also be accessed by following the Osprey mountain bike blue grade trail or by cycling Lakeside Way north shore.
Silvas Capitalis is located on the Lakeside Way north shore. About 0.5 miles to the east is Viewpoints and Janus Chairs are 1 mile further. If feeling energetic Belvedere is an additional 3 miles to the east, passing Robin’s Hut on the way.
SIMPARCH was originally commissioned to work on an artist's residency at Kielder in 2007 and subsequently selected to create a new sculpture as part of the Lakeside Way shelters project. The proposal for a giant wooden head developed out of SIMPARCH member Steve Badgett's interest in the way history and heritage is portrayed in visitor centres and heritage sites across Northumberland and particularly along the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site that runs across the country to the south of Kielder. He was also fascinated by the way the that the landscape and its occupancy has changed over many hundreds of years and for this sculpture, speculated what it might be like to have been a constant witness to this continual change.
Silvas Capitalis is the result of these ideas, an unsettling object discovered in the forest that is 'outliving' the essentially ephemeral nature of the landscape and its inhabitants.
"The uncanny effect is often and easily produced when the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced, as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality" Sigmund Freud.
A team of 6 skilled carpenters and joiners worked throughout February and May 2009 to fabricate the head at the art and architecture studio in Kielder Village and then construct it in the forest. Silvas Capitalis was assembled from 107 cross sections or layers, approximately 3000 individually shaped pieces that when stacked on top of one another, created the three-dimensional form of the head.
A foundation was formed from timber piles driven into the ground onto which the floor was fixed. Layers of the head were added to the emerging sculpture in a temporary 'tent' that protected the working area and helped keep the temperature high enough for the glue to work effectively.
By the end of March, the construction had reached above the eyes although the exterior and interior still showed the stepping of the individual layers.
In May a number of the team members returned to complete the sculpture, inserting the first floor, staircase, and the remaining layers that made up the top of the head.
Once all layers were in place grinding wheels and a chainsaw were used to shape and smooth the interior and exterior surfaces resulting in the head that now stands in the forest.
The reddish brown of the head's European Larch has turned silvery grey and the surface is accumulating the mosses and lichens that are found on the surrounding trees.
Original proposal drawing from 2008.
L-R Steve Badgett, David Jones & Simon Banks.
SIMPARCH (visit SIMPARCH) is an American artist's collective that was founded in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1996. Presently this group is organized and maintained by Matthew Lynch and Steve Badgett. Their practice involves large-scale, usually interactive installations and works that, as the group's name suggests, examine simple architecture, building practices, site specificity, and materials that may be salvaged, recycled or generally brought together with a kind of DIY attitude.
Often collaborating with other artists, builders, art critics, graffiti artists, filmmakers, skate boarders, and musicians, SIMPARCH works at providing sites which allow for social interaction and experimentation with design and materials.