Jo Chapman

Timekeeper 2022

Ironworks, Cambridge

Commissioner: Cambridge Investment Partnerships Public Art Programme Resonance-Cambridge

Public art consultant: Clare Phillips

Fabricators: Milwyn Casting Ltd

Photography by Douglas Atfield

Watch a short film of the meet the artists day and community event here

The sculpture responds to the history of the site as a place of work: workhouse allotments, Headly's Eagle foundry, store-yard and council depot. Acknowledging the thicket of time in a sculptural form, if time could be interpreted as a succession of now's, presents or moments, then the sculpture and the community are adding to the new ‘history’ of the site.

The form of the cast bronze sculpture is inspired by the cast iron drainpipes made by Headly's foundry that shaped themselves around a building. The sculpture is the foundry language of casting, industry, technology, functional and robust. It is marked with coloured 'high vis' lines which map the footprint of past buildings that have existed on the land where the artwork now sits. The sculpture is human in scale and intended to be sat on and interacted with by the community.

A series of workshops were held with a creative writing group based at a local mental health charity. Through the sessions held by myself and writer and poet Hannah Jane Walker a commissioned poem was written. The poem was entitled 'Graft' and a verse has been cast into the sculpture.

The public art projects are being delivered under the title of Resonance-Cambridge the public art programme for Cambridge Investment Partnerships.