A shop window for art in the city

It is a pretty easy argument to make that retail and finance – and not art – were at the forefront of the city planners’ minds when they were laying out the future of Leeds.

Not for nothing was the city labelled the “Knightsbridge of the North”.

While it may have gloried in that label during the boom years, the city could perhaps now be regretting not putting culture at its heart during these difficult times.

The worlds of commerce and culture have, however, come together in Leeds thanks to a surprising collaboration between Harvey Nichols and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Both iconic names in Yorkshire in their own right, they are not two venues you might expect to see working together, one internationally famous as a place where the well-heeled flash their cash, the other a place to strap on your walking boots and see some internationally-renowned sculpture.

The link between these two unlikely bedfellows is artist Rebecca Chesney.

Chesney, appointed the Yorkshire Sculpture Park artist in residence for 2009 to 2010, spent last year finding and recording the bee population of the park, using the information to create an exhibition which maps the landscape of the park based on the locations of bees and wildflowers. She also worked with the Regional Bee Inspector to introduce two honeybee colonies to the park, and an observation hive – and also happened to qualify as a bee keeper, before turning her research and knowledge into an art installation.

Chesney was recommended to Harvey Nichols by the park as an artist the company might be interested in working with.

The high-end department store has been taking a greater interest in local artists over the past couple of years, regularly staging exhibitions in its Fourth Floor Cafe, hosting the work of Willard Wigan and Marcus Levine over the past couple of years.

The latest exhibition, featuring the work of Chesney, has been created in collaboration with the artist working closely with the store’s display manager Andy Berrington.

The resulting exhibition, open this week, is the culmination of a project the artist has been working on for a number of years.

“I have always been interested in species of plant that people don’t normally like. That led me to looking more closely at dandelions and seeing how complex they are,” says Chesney.

Her research into the plant, regarded widely as an unwelcome weed, began in her native Lancashire, in Preston, where in 2006 she conducted a weed survey in the city centre and discovered the species is prevalent in the city centre.

Her research also took her to Japan, where the European dandelion is considered an invasive species.

When she was connected to Harvey Nichols by the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, she began a conversation with Berrington.

A graduate of Leeds’s Jacob Kramer college who went on to study an MA at the Royal College of Art, Berrington appreciated Chesney’s work and invited her to create a piece for his store’s Fourth Floor Café.

Chesney came up with an artwork that spans the glass walls of the café, made from the shapes of some of the dandelions she has recorded during her research. The images are on the glass doors and walls of the café, which looks over the city of Leeds.

“Species like dandelions thrive in urban environments, so there was something about this project that seemed to make sense with the setting of the city centre location of the store,” says Chesney.

The exhibition will also feature various prints Chesney has created during her research into the weeds.

Berrington says: “Ultimately, we are a commercial venture, so we’re not going to stage controversial Turner Prize style work in Harvey Nichols.

“That doesn’t mean that the art we have on display has to be confined to pretty pictures on a wall.”

Rebecca Chesney at Harvey Nichols runs at the Fourth Floor Café until August 18.