LONDON.- The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family announced the launch of Dancing in the Shadow of Henry, a new collaboration with artist, curator and Head of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, Sarah Staton. Reflecting on Henry Moore’s Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 3, which sits in the nearby Brandon Estate, just south of Kennington Park, Dancing in the Shadow of Henry is transforming a small street-side piece of land on Camberwell New Road into a lively new permanent, pocket sculpture garden.

Dancing in the Shadow of Henry is part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s ongoing Your Space Or Mine initiative, giving artists and creatives across the UK a unique platform to present their work outdoors and connect with communities across our cities. The sculptural street-side interventions enlivens and energises the site, becoming a catalyst for a new creative configuration between road, plinth, artist and audience.

BUILDHOLLYWOOD has invited Sarah Staton, renowned for her beautifully wrought, playful and imaginative public commissions, to inaugurate the project. Her newly conceived work Chicken and Egg launched this exciting new public arts space on 17 July 2023, including a public event designed for the young community at St John the Divine Primary School, Camberwell.

Surrounding the plinth, and keeping with the modern tradition of sculpture gardens, the grounds have been re-modelled by gardener David Doherty. Inspired by the famous gardens of Henry Moore Studios in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, and those at the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas, Doherty has created an understated space using perennial and evergreen plants such as ivy, laurel, and sea buckthorn, as well as an underplanting of bulbs to create clusters of colour for the spring and summer months.

The artist reflects:

“The chicken and the egg, such a playful and reliable conundrum that anchors us back in time via the seemingly ceaseless continuum of generational links. Opening Dancing in the Shadow of Henry, this chicken and egg is like yin and yang, two parts of a whole, reciprocal and balanced. But talking of ‘dancing’, what is going on here with this chicken and this egg? Is this chicken dancing on that egg? Is that egg in danger of slipping right off its plinth? What on earth is going on, and how on earth might we bring some balance back here?”




As the project's lead artist and curator, Sarah will select further work both from local artists and graduate students from the RCA to be displayed on the plinth, with a six month turnaround.

Sarah writes about the project:

“Contemplative sculpture and the hectic energy of a busy arterial London road don’t often meet directly in dialogue, but Dancing in the Shadow of Henry proposes just such an interaction.

There are of course, some precedents where road meets sculpture; we might think back to post war Europe, sculpture commissioned at the time when roundabouts were seen as innovative, sculpture sitting in the round and to viewed from the windows of passing cars adding a heady

frisson to the already enlivening experience of careering around a curve. Or we might think of the brilliant placement of ‘The Angel of The North’, where the lavish excess of vertical and horizontal Corten steel presides over the northern extent of the M1 motorway. ‘The Angel of the North’, posing as a marker, as gateway, ticking strong emotional triggers around identity. North versus South, Us versus You. The sculptures you will find in Dancing in the Shadow of Henry manifest as grass root, street-side, people-friendly, human-scale propositions, and it is both exciting and an honour to be working with BUILDHOLLYWOOD on this new platform for emerging artists and engaging new audiences.”

In addition to providing opportunities for recent graduates and professional practitioners, Your Space Or Mine installations actively involve the communities in which they appear, and those commissioned as part of Dancing in the Shadow of Henry will be working with children from St John the Divine Primary School, Camberwell to create artist-led community activities that celebrate multi-sensory delight and creativity.

SARAH STATON

Sarah Station is a visual artist, living and working in London. She uses diverse media and mediums to investigate current interests and obsessions, producing an expanded notion of sculpture with a regard for sculpture’s social potential. Staton’s studio work augments her long running SupaStore project, which presents multiples and editions from emerging and established artists. She exhibits internationally and her work has been included in exhibitions at Shedhalle, Zurich; AplusA, San Marco, Venice; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Cylinder Gallery, South Korea; the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK; Tate Modern, the V&A and the South London Gallery. Staton has created permanent public work at Bristol, Milton Keynes, Folkstone and in Westminster, London. She has 3 commissions on the London Tideway Project, launching in 2023/24. Staton is Head of Sculpture at RCA London.