Habitats

Work in progress launched May 2026

900 x 250 x 150mm

Set of 5 public sculptures commissioned for Waterfoot Historic Signage Project.

Link to artist profile on website

Waterfoot's material history, having broad connections to global trade during the first industrial revolution and deep connections to geological time, provides a rich vein of inspiration which I have mined during my artistic research for this sculpture project.

The outcome is a proposed sequence of small stone carvings, drawing from the idiosyncrasies of Waterfoot's slipper making industry via plaid textile patterns, postcards, datestones and boundary stones in search of symbols of its past and future.

Each stone represents one of the five senses - taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell - in facial features on a King George V stamp shown in profile and partially veiled, and is situated throughout the landscape as if to invite individuals to consider their belonging to the immediate surroundings and wider communities. The scale of the sculptures and ambiguity of their carvings submit to the processes of organic decay and changes in meaning, and join a whole host of vernacular stone carvings which have been repurposed and forgotten perhaps casting a light, by contrast, on the absence of statues to philanthropists, industrialists and other powerful icons within the valley.