Sam Jacob, ‘Fragmented Follies’ Installation at Pump House Gallery, 2019, London, UK.
Fragmented Follies is a set of objects that are part landscape, part sculpture, part furniture that invite visitors to sit on, picnic at, and otherwise interact with their unusual forms.
The shape of the follies was drawn from the surrounding context of the park and its history, referencing elements including the chimneys of Battersea Power Station, a Barbara Hepworth sculpture, structures left behind from the 1951 Festival of Britain, elements of Victorian gothic revival monuments, even the sole of an lost wellington boot found in the park.
These layers of architectural and cultural histories were combined in unusual ways to create social sculptures – objects that invite interpretation through the way they are used.
Sited on the Pump House Gallery terrace they provide an enlivening link between the gallery and the park.
The project was co-designed by Sam Jacob Studio with Year 9 students from Burntwood School, South London through a series of workshops designed to open up the design process to multiple ways of looking.
Participants were first invited to walk through the park and take photographs of elements that interested them. The second workshop saw the same students working with Jacob to assemble models, made up of shapes inspired by the images. These building blocks became the reference point for the final design of the sculptural pieces.
Commissioned by Pump House Gallery & Royal College of Art Curating Contemporary Art programme and co-designed with students from Burntwood School.