The Making of The Crossing Place
By Heinrich & Palmer
‘The Crossing Place’ by artists Heinrich & Palmer was a large scale, sound and light projection event developed specially for the DN Festival of Light 2021 in Doncaster Minster.
A scaled down adaption of the work could also be experienced at the Danum Gallery, Library and Museum alongside a selection of the museum’s taxidermy specimens. Click here for a walk through of the exhibition.
The Crossing Place is inspired by Doncaster’s rich heritage collection and the town’s long standing association with wildlife parks which dates back to the C19th when the Owston Estate was home to a range of exotic creatures which included the now extinct Quagga.
The Quagga was preserved by the taxidermist Hugh Reid after its demise and was later donated to Doncaster Museum where it still remains a scientifically important specimen. The artwork Landscape with Animals (An African Scene) by the artist Ramsay Richard Reinagle shows an imagined landscape with some of the animals that lived in the park including the young Quagga.
The Crossing Place re-imagines Reinagle’s fictional landscape populated by a menagerie of exotic and native creatures such as crocodile, puffer fish, leopard, penguin, snake.
The 3D Scanning Process
Using 3D laser scanning technology, projection and lighting effects the artists have drawn on the Danum Gallery, Library and Museum’s rich taxidermy collection to create a landscape of fantastical creatures where predators and prey exist peacefully side to by side as luminous bodies of light.
The soundscape developed specifically for the film weaves together sounds recorded at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park with musical elements specially composed and mixed to express the movement and potential dramas playing out between the different creatures.
“The Crossing Place takes a journey through an imaginary landscape where reptile, fish, bird and mammal reside peacefully together, rendered as ethereal bodies of light.”
