Colin, Sybil and Bazelgette, 2024
Cast concrete, aggregate, jesomnite and bronze powders
3 Sculptures with approx dims 3.3m x 90cm x 80cm
Acton Pumping Station
Camden Rd, London W4 1AJ
The artist comments: "It's all about scale! The three totems that I've created at Acton, stand taller than us, surveying the locale like silent interlocutors, and introducing us to the new Tideway infrastructure. The vent column here reaches towards the heavens, yet also connects us deep into the bowls of the new super sewer. Acton Pumping Station is where this tunnel begins, it is its most Western extent; on account of this gateway situation, one of the characters that is depicted on the totems has to be Joseph Bazelgette, the brilliant Victorian engineer who saved London from its lavish excesses of effluence via his complex system of brick conduits that remain in use to today. Sir Joseph Bazelgette is accompanied by Sybil, a fictional laundress from the time when the area was threaded by small streams and waterways which formed the rationale for the development of laundries here, often started by women in their homes. The last totem is Colin, created to honour Acton's legendary youth worker from Bollo Brook, and standing as representative of the very many essential service workers who's incredible collective energies and dedicated labour got us through the pandemic years."
Bazelgette Bronze is a limited edition of 12, cast bronze table top sculptures. The edition has been cast directly from the initial plaster models that the artist created in developing this commission and from which the larger pieces have been fabricated.