arts

Sculpture… has no life in itself. Our interaction gives meaning [Gormley]

Often we can identify a ‘focal point’, maybe the end of an axis, where a sculpture of artwork is necessary, an extended arm, outgoing.

Sometimes it is in an ‘elbow’, incoming, the place from which it can be viewed form multiple angles, and can be kissed by the sun over the course of the day

Sometimes it will take no space.

A couple of shots of some ’special projects’ of 2024, works in progress, one an ‘elbow’ sculpture inserted into o a Foggo house, the other a ‘blank canvas’ at the end of an axis waiting for a rich, golden threaded fabric. The golden thread is the story, the route through the landscape.

We are pleased to announce that a new statue of the Irish born educator and champion of Indian freedom, Sister Nivedita, has been installed in Lake Road, Wimbledon. Sister Nivedita opened schools in Wimbledon before going to Bengal where she continued her pioneering work in women’s education and wrote in English about Indian culture. She is now revered in India, and a sculpture celebrating her life was offered to be erected in Wimbledon. After several years finding a suitable site and gaining the necessary permissions, the statue, which was made in Bengal, arrived in England in May 2023 and was installed at the corner of Lake Road and Leopold Road just outside Ricards Lodge Girls High School. We asked for the statue to be made slightly larger than life size – statues tend to look small unless they are slightly enlarged – and to be set on an octagonal plinth so that she is in an appropriate relationship to pedestrians as they pass by. As Anthony Gormley has remarked, the statue itself has no life, it comes to life with our reaction to it. We are delighted to have facilitated this new and exciting adornment to the public realm, celebrating a strong and independent woman who was prepared to devote her life for just and enduring causes. She faces slightly south of east, towards Bengal.