MARGATE.- Jyll Bradley invites the public to come and enjoy her installation Dutch / Light (for Agneta Block) , which is a contemplative space that celebrates cultural exchange and explores the idea of the glasshouse, the way it is activated by the sun and its capacity to cultivate new life and growth. The installation features five orange and green Plexiglas blades, under which people can walk and sit, while the sun shines though. Visitors are encouraged to read a book, write, take photos, perform, or just sit and watch the light play on the sea.

Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and Turner Contemporary commissioned artist Jyll Bradley to make this new piece of work for summer 2017 to mark the 350th anniversary of the Dutch Raid on the River Medway. The raid is little known in British history. It occurred in June 1667 and resulted in a Dutch Fleet coming up the River Medway, capturing the flagship of the Royal Navy, the Royal Charle s , which was taken back to the Netherlands. The stern carvings survive to this day and take pride of place in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Dutch/Light (for Agneta Block) forms a contemporary response to the 350th anniversary of the Dutch Raid which eventually signalled the cessation of the AngloDutch wars - and the beginnings of a peace between the two nations which is enjoyed to this day. The work draws inspiration from an unlikely outcome of the peace: a profound cultural exchange between the two nations based on growing plants. At this time Dutch growers were pioneering early glasshouse technology.

This had evolved from the simple idea of leaning glass frames against a south-facing wall – the so-called ‘Dutch Light’ – and led to a horticultural revolution which crossed the North Sea. A shared passion for ‘growing under glass’ is borne out today by the vast numbers of private greenhouses in both countries.

The structure is named after Agneta Block, the first person to ripen a pineapple in Europe, thanks to Dutch greenhouse techniques – a cultural exchange made possible because of the end of the Anglo-Dutch wars.

The installation considers the sculptural potential of the glasshouse. In the work,
five tall ‘Dutch Lights’ are turned on their side and leant against south-facing walls to create an open structure under which audiences can walk and sit. The ‘lights’ are made of intensely coloured Plexiglas: green (for Kent and the UK) and orange (for the Netherlands). As with a glasshouse, the whole structure is activated by the sun: during its daily passage one colour dominates, gives way to the other, then merges and fades to a glow. The angles of the structure to the wall mean that stunning colour washes will occur across the different surfaces they touch.

In so doing, it creates a place/space where people and buildings are bathed in geometric colour: literally and metaphorically casting all in a new light. Symbolically the super structure has been fabricated using wood from Chatham Dockyard; remnant timbers from an old naval building have been transformed into a glasshouse, signifier of the human potential to move toward light and growth.

“I call the work Dutch/Light ( for Agneta Block) because the first person to ripen a pineapple in Europe was Agneta Block, a Dutch horticulturalist and art collector. Pineapple growing using the 'Dutch Light' and southerly wall system was the focus of early Anglo - Dutch horticultural exchange. I feel the story of the Dutch raid is very male; a fascinating by - product of it is a woman growing a pineapple - and our love of glasshouses today.” Jyll Bradley