Sculpture and performance commissioned by Hauser & Wirth Somerset for the exhibition The Land We Live In – The Land We Left Behind, curated by Adam Sutherland.

Anchorhold is a structure commissioned by Grizedale Arts and designed by Sutherland Hussey Architects.

Coates has worked with Grizedale Arts on previous occasions to install and activate the Anchorhold structure. For this exhibition, Coates uses the Anchorhold structure as an apple store. The structure holds two people within it and in the course of the show Coates holds a series of one-on-one consultations with members of the public. The stored apples are available for visitors to eat.

Members of the public bought a question to the consultation. Coates answered these questions exclusively using his knowledge and experience of apples as a basis for relevant metaphor.

The exhibition explored the contradictory nature of society’s relationship to the rural. It featured over 100 international artists working from the 1500s to the present day, including Paul McCarthy, Beatrix Potter, Carsten Höller, Laure Prouvost, William Holman Hunt, Samuel Palmer, Frank Lloyd Wright, Fernando García-Dory, Mark Dion, Roni Horn, Aaron Angell and Mark Wallinger.

Photographs of installation views: The Land We Live In – The Land We Left Behind Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 20 January — 7 May 2018, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth, photography by Ken Adlard.