Hi Anna. Can you start by telling us how you first got involved with Sinking House?
So I got a phone call from Funda Kemal who I met through Extinction Rebellion (XR). She put me in touch with the architects, Rob Delius and Sarah Perry. They explained the plan and said ‘Are you up for it?’ and I just instantly thought yes, of course I’m up for it. I felt this was a really good opportunity for me to use my skills and make a contribution.
What was it about the project that interested you most?
Ironically, just over a year ago, I installed three banners with XR across Pulteney Bridge saying ‘We’re Up Sh*t Creek’. That was such a wonderful project. It was all completely covert and done without permission. And then suddenly I had an invitation to work in exactly the same place, this iconic location. But, this time, there were actual people and tourists around. Whereas my previous project with XR happened during lockdown and the city was completely dead.
Do you think your covert operation was as effective as an organised approach?
I think the organisation probably did count for something. Sinking House got into China Daily and all sorts of other press. But of course you can do something illegal, like XR did with their Pink Boat, and surprise everybody and that’s fabulous too. Honestly, I don’t think that question’s got one answer to it.
How do you think Sinking House compares to something like XR’s Pink Boat?
The boat was disruptive which the Sinking House sculpture wasn’t. Sinking House was a gentle gesture in comparison. There is something about disruption that captures people. As much as we fear not being liked – talk about Insulate Britain blocking motorways at the moment – the boat was transgressive.
Do you think Sinking House and its message potentially captured a slightly different audience though because of its less disruptive nature?
That’s interesting actually, you’re probably right. I think the world’s changed since the Pink Boat too; we’ve had the flooding events in Germany and the fires in Australia. I think when you get environmental disasters happening so close to home, it’s suddenly very shocking and people take notice. Those people on beaches in Australia – I hate to say this, but – they look like us, they’re wearing the same clothes as us, they’re driving the same cars as us. So it’s not as easy for people to distance themselves from what’s happening now.
I saw you posted a photo on your Instagram account of a person stood on the roof of a house surrounded by flood water. Was that the image that inspired Sinking House?
Yes. Rob Delius used the image on a mood board which is what got me interested in the project. Of course, I’d already seen those images. Obviously that person in the image is standing but practically it’s much harder to make a standing figure. You’d have to have a really solid armature braced inside the structure. By making a sitting figure, I knew that a very light armature structure would work.
So Rob came to my studio and we made it with a little bit of collaboration. I just kept showing him pictures and it was quite nice because it firmed up gradually over two weeks. Rob and Sarah actually posed for the sculpture which was great. Together, we worked out what the pose was and what the meaning of the pose was. It was all about trying to hold onto this lifeline but the head is turning towards jeopardy which was the flooding.
There’s been some discussion about the gender of the sculpture…
Yes, I’m really aware that it’s a male figure. This is a massive issue – it takes a bit of honesty to talk about. The male figure represents humanity. I think it was Simone de Beauvoir who wrote about the subordination of women and their categorisation as the Other… It’s why someone like Anthony Gormley – a 60-odd year old, white, non-disabled male – cast himself for his sculpture on Crosby Beach. He represents humanity. If you do a female figure, it just doesn’t. So as a sculptor what do you do?
It sounds like you’re bound by the language of art in some ways…
It’s the language of the entirety of our culture. Humanity is viewed through this patriarchal lens. If the figure was female, people would say, ‘Who is this? Why is it a woman?’. The way to represent humankind historically has been through the male figure and I went with that. It’s a communication piece and it was important that the main message wasn’t blurred by conversations around gender.
The other thing is that the average male is bigger than the average female so when you’re trying to create something that is both human-scale but has an impact from a distance, size is important.
That makes sense. So have you always been passionate about the environment? And does this passion manifest in your work?
So back in 2003, I started to feel really anxious about the climate. It sort of came upon me quite suddenly when we moved to Bath. I’d been doing things like sitting in the traffic on the London Road with my engine running just thinking we’re killing ourselves. It was as though a layer of skin peeled off and I could see the truth. I felt as though I was part of the problem.
So I went on this amazing course at the Schumacher College in Devon called Art in Place, with people like Anthony Gormley and Peter Randall-Page teaching, and I was able to express my anxiety. After being there for two weeks, I decided that I needed to let the art be of service. So for about eight years after I made sculptures out of found tree material, acorns and such. The work was a meditation on a rather deep green idea of humans and nature being at one.
Do you think your environmental work has made a difference to issues like climate change?
So I feel my personal work at that time was very beautiful but actually very limited in expression. It was considering the environment in a one-dimensional way – only looking at this sense of ‘oneness’. So I sort of moved away from it after a while because I thought this isn’t actually making a difference.
So when XR came into my life in April 2019, I jumped at it. And I’ve been able to use my art skills in a much more practical way which has felt an awful lot more effective than making art which is only seen in galleries. So I’m now helping XR with printing and banner making and I also have a visual eye on performance. It’s quite important to get the aesthetics right and a lot of activists don’t necessarily have practical art skills.
Would you say art in general is an effective form of communication though?
So my sister is a reasonably well known print maker. She makes mezzotints of moths and is using her art to talk about specific aspects of the environmental crisis, like the loss of insect biodiversity. She’s been featured in The Guardian and she does get an audience. So her art is doing something. And what’s more, she is not the kind of person who could go out on the streets and shout. Whereas when I’m on the streets it’s like I’m functioning at 110 percent.
And where do you think Sinking House sits within that thinking?
So interestingly, I consider Sinking House to be protest art. So similar to making a banner, it’s a visual communication piece. That to me is very different from the work you see around me in my studio which is more expressive.
Finally, do you think you learnt anything from the Sinking House project? Is there hope for the future?
Sinking House reinforced my existing feeling that I should take almost any opportunity to collaborate. When you see people collaborating, you think… yes, this is the kind of world we need to live in: a collaborative world, not a profit-driven world.
So where I’m living at the moment, we’re building a community and there’s quite a lot of talk about self-sufficiency in terms of things like food production. So for me personally, I’m making a constructive effort to seek and create sustainable ways to live. But I’m just not sure. People since the 60s, and even well before then, have been trying to work together to create alternatives. There’s a massive tradition where you try but I think real change will only come from political action.
