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SHIP

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Half Moon Bay

Anna Gillespie

March 2019

From the earliest Roman and Viking settlers, to travellers boarding Irish Sea ferries in the present day, Heysham, Lancashire has long been a strategic point of arrival, departure and human settlement. The sculpture SHIP at Half Moon Bay, in sight of Heysham Port, celebrates Morecambe Bay's landscape and maritime heritage, and reflects the importance of seaborne trade in bringing news, innovation and shaping the character of the area.

Symbolically positioned on the boundary between land and sea, benefitting from dramatic backdrops of the tides, horizon and stunning coastal sunsets, the outline of a ship's hull is mounted with two opposing figures at each end, one facing 'the new' of Heysham Nuclear Power Station and the other facing 'the old' of the ancient monument of St Patrick's Chapel.

“I developed the idea of a simple ship with people sitting on it, up high to see out over the Bay.

It's what people do when they sit at the sea, and contemplate.

It's what the sea does to you, gives you a break and space.

Hopefully people are going to see this when they look at the sculpture.”

Anna Gillespie

For 18 months, Deco Publique worked with Morecambe Bay Partnership to secure permits and planning permissions to bring the SHIP sculpture to fruition and carried out a programme of local community consultation. It was important to engage residents in the process of creating a new work that would live on in the environment they walk in and enjoy everyday. We worked with the artist to determine the specification, with the sculpture created in corten steel that will evolve in the weather conditions and which the artist describes, as ‘being the colour of earth which will go with the grass, sky and sea’, and the Longridge Sandstone central block.

SHIP has been warmly received by regular walkers and visitors to Half Moon Bay, with audiences responding to the personal significance of the two figures and the boat, positioned amid the ever changing seascape of the Bay, its weather and its tides.

Anna Gillespie’s work recaptures a feeling of immersion in nature, with many pieces using natural found objects cast into bronze. Recent visits to Africa and America have somewhat shifted her focus to the way in which humans are influenced by the man-made environment and to the way in which we interact with the planet as a species. Her sculpture seeks to draw a parallel with the historical experience of people and their movements across the surface of the Earth through the ages, depicting solitary figures or groups, often in a meditative or perhaps even spiritual stance.

Anna Gillespie lives and works in Bath and is represented by the Beaux Arts galleries - Bath & London. Her work is in the collections of The Prudential, Burghley House Sculpture Park, The Somerset Museum, Museo Arte Contemporanea Sicilia, Bodrum Sculpture Park Turkey and in private collections.

SHIP Gallery

Photography - Robin Zahler

CLICK TO VIEW PROGRAMME COMMISSIONS

Emily Hennessey, Made by the Moon

Jenny Reeves and Ellen Jeffrey, Longways / Crosswise

Rob Mullholland, Settlement

Chris Drury, Horizon Line Chamber

The Headlands to Headspace Landscape Art Commissioning Programme was a series of five artworks commissioned by Morecambe Bay Partnership, co-produced and co-curated by Deco Publique and funded by the Heritage Fund. The temporary and permanent artworks were located around Morecambe Bay’s stunning 90 mile coastline to engage residents and visitors with the natural and cultural heritage of the Bay and the spectacular landscape, coast and wildlife. 

Morecambe Bay Partnership is a charity that celebrates and conserves; connects and collaborates. From birds to beach cleans, from cycle ways to the history that shaped the Bay, they work in collaboration with the community and other partners to deliver projects with real impact.

Deco Publique has collaborated with Morecambe Bay Partnership for a number of years with a shared vision of expanding the profile and legacy of the Bay’s heritage, landscape and culture. During the Headlands to Headspace programme, we worked together closely to navigate the complex challenges of citing artistic work in the land. Our particular thanks to Susannah Bleakley and Jan Shorrock for the collaborative and positive approach to working together to realise such ambitious, dynamic outcomes.

Our two organisations are now collaborating on a new piece of research made possible with Arts Council funding secured by Deco Publique to look at future arts and landscape commissioning around Morecambe Bay.