Transforming Public Space, Sculpturally: The Artist’s Garden

About

The event will begin with an encounter of Hendry's work at The Artist's Garden before walking over to RSA House for the in conversation and drinks

theCOLAB unites people, land and art by commissioning epic, life-affirming and career-defining sculptural works in undervalued and underused outdoor public spaces. The Artist's Garden, on the roof of Temple tube station, with 85 metres of river frontage and only a 7-minute walk from RSA is a popular public open barrier free destination for the contemplation and appreciation of the power of sculptural interventions by women artists. Holly Hendry is a sculptor whose work embraces scale, place and public and she will talk about the conception and execution of 'Slackwater', her first London and most expansive work to date. It is an immense sculptural entanglement that weaves together the watery history of its riverside location, with references to the abstract rhythms of the Thames and liquid movements within the human body. Drawn to changes in the pattern of the river's surface, she constructed the 35 metre long work with industrial-scale ducting, curled around electricity spools and over casts of inflated boat fenders to create a work that ebbs and flows across the site's architecture. The artist's visual language is drawn from ancient depictions of floods and rivers, and 19th century microscopic images of Thames water, described as 'monster soup', a bacterial slurry teeming with surreal, animated forms.