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Tom Price, Hidden River, 2020.

Hidden River is an homage to the ancient River Effra, which once flowed through this site to the River Thames, but was diverted underground in the 1800s. The sculpture imagines the river defiantly carving a passage through subterranean London, exposing the many rich layers of the city’s cultural and industrial past. Inlaid porcelain seams are a reference to centuries of ceramic production on this site – from Roman times to the establishment of the famous Lambeth Potteries in C16, where companies such as Royal Doulton were first established.  Passing between the blocks the viewer is invited to follow the path of the river, imagining the water gradually shaping the fluid forms and cavities into London’s industrial bedrock.