Hilary Jack Empty Nest

Artist Hilary Jack asked visitors to climb up inside her Empty Nest nest and get a birds-eye view of the park.

In the woods of Ice House Coppice, a giant bird’s nest was created in a 250-year-old cedar of Lebanon tree. Empty Nest, was an artwork by artist Hilary Jack, which nestled in the parkland beside the lake.  The nest offered a place of hidden sanctuary and the unique opportunity to climb up and get a bird’s eye view of Compton Verney, the surrounding parkland, lake, flora and fauna.

Hilary quotes Ambroise Pare, Le Livre des Animaux et de L’intelligence de L’homme vol lll p 740 “…there is not a man who would be able to make a house better suited for himself and his children than these little animals…” Hilary invited all visitors to Compton Verney to climb up into the nest and see for themselves.

Empty Nest explored themes of the abandoned home, collecting and repair, which reflect Compton Verney’s history. The Grade I-listed Georgian mansion was restored into an art gallery for the 21st century and opened to the public in 2004 having been lost by the family through death duties, requisitioned during the war and then abandoned and in a state of disrepair for many years.

The work also considered folklore and the many countryside myths associated with rooks, in particular, the superstition that rooks desert the colonies they have sometimes inhabited for generations when an heir to a nearby estate dies childless.

Originally commissioned for Tatton Biennial of Contemporary Art 2012.
Thanks to Macclesfield Forest for their donation of greenwood.