 – a word that relates to the stations of the cross and to redemptive suffering, but here, replaced by something closer to an eastern idea of a vertical system of energies, whether the chakras of yoga or the meridians of acupuncture. I see the works as instruments against which our own scale, our own weight, our own density, can be felt.

They are models of a high-rise building made in human form, replacing anatomy with the syntax of architecture. Instead of being a regular grid, as in most steel or concrete-framed buildings, these steel or cast iron supports or columns are placed irregularly; they go where they have to in order to take the load. None of these works are stable or solid, the intervals between the floors are not consistent, and as engineering, they are at the edge of what's possible. I am trying to question the certainties that both sculpture and architecture attempt to give us.

The body mediates between earth and sky, between deep space and the planet. I also call them 

 because they are purposefully static. A frame made for the space that a body once occupied, a body looking at the horizon, for example. There is a twist: the feet face 90 degrees to the head to give the feel of alert awareness; looking out. I want to inscribe that idea of that distant horizon, the horizontal through and into the body.

This is a meditation on what is happening to us while we are living in higher density and high-rise buildings. Maybe we no longer feel the earth. In living this form of collective life away from the ground, we become more and more dependent on technology and satellite-aided communication. So how stable or unstable are we? This is an investigation of what the Empire State Building, the Shard or the great towers in Shanghai express: this idea that we can leave the earth.

Stations

, 2013, cast iron, 190.5 × 40 × 33 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station

, 2013, cast iron, 10 mm mild steel plate and 20 mm square section mild steel bar, 191.4 × 44.4 × 33.8 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station III

, 2014, 5 mm mild steel plate and 10 mm square section mild steel bar, 191 × 44.4 × 32 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station IV

, 2014, 10 mm mild steel plate and 5 mm square section mild steel bar, 191 × 44 × 34 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station VII

, 2014, 10 mm mild steel plate and 10 mm square section mild steel bar, 191 × 46 × 51 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station VIII

, 2014, 5 mm mild steel plate and 5 mm square section mild steel bar, 189.6 × 50.7 × 45.8 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station IX

, 2014, 5 mm mild steel plate and 5 mm square section mild steel bar, 195 × 48.5 × 34.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station XI

, 2014, cast iron, 189.5 × 43.5 × 34 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station XII

, 2014, cast iron, 187.5 × 50 × 27 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station XIII

, 2014, cast iron, 190.5 × 47 × 50 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station XIV

, 2014, cast iron, 192.5 × 43 × 43.5 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station XV

, 2014, 10 mm mild steel plate and 10 mm square section mild steel bar, 195 × 49.5 × 35.8 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Station XVII

, 2015, 5 mm mild steel plate and 5 mm square section mild steel bar, 191 × 44.3 × 33.7 cm. Photograph by Stephen White, London.

Stations

Related content

Host

Sight