Life-Size Figurative Sculptures Across the British Coast Link Human Identity with Nature

By Jenny Zhang on June 16, 2015

To mark the Landmark Trust's 50th anniversary, renowned artist Antony Gormley has installed a series of five life-sized, iron sculptures cast in the shape of abstract human figures around the British Isles. Each sculpture stands at a specially selected Landmark Trust site overlooking a body of water in order to celebrate half a century of work rescuing and restoring some of Britain's most historical buildings.

Titled LAND, the series explores the relationship between people, places, and time in a new way. Gormley, who is known for his figurative creations, chose to position four of the sculptures along the coastline, while the final piece anchors the entire installation from its location on the South Stratford canal in the center of England. The fifth form looks into the depths of the manmade lock, in stark contrast to the wild, open ruggedness of the coastal sites. In the artist's words, the sculptures are meant to be “displacements, identifying the place where a particular human body once stood and anyone could stand.”

“The sculptures will be like standing stones: markers in space and time, linking with specific places and their histories; catalysts for reflection,” says Gormley. “LAND invites us to think about our identity and the mindset of a nation surrounded by water, and how that affects the way we make our choices. Water both divides from and connects us to the rest of the world. Water isolates us and makes us self-reliant, but with the invitation of the horizon offers the chance to overcome our limitations and engage with the future. More generally, these sites with their industrially made body-forms provide a good place to reassess the human project.”

All five of the installations are fully accessible and free for the general public to enjoy through May 2016.

Above: Lengthsman's Cottage, Lowsonford, Warwickshire, England