London is littered with discarded street furniture including pre-combustion engine transport infrastructure relics, many dating from its Victorian era. Following on from my own investigations into the degradation of contemporary transport infrastructure, and the construction and repair of roads, so long a part of Irish labourers history in the UK, this project was developed whilst undertaking research into carving, and in particular, examining the scarcity of materials around Southwark Park.
Emerging from a discarded granite horse trough buried in Southwark Park and then donated to the local carving education project, it was slowly and painstakingly reworked in the form of the broken parts of a local broken traffic bollard – a contemporary piece of of todays urban fabric itself destined for disposal in land-fill.
Granite Victorian horse trough excavated during the re-landscaping of Southwark Park in London
Precision carved using power tools
Hand finished, with painstaking detail made to reproduce the break between the two parts.
Documentation of work. To be installed with two parts connected by a pool of white reflective road paint on ground.