In 2015 we were approached by Auckland Castle to install ‘Matyrs’, a four panel video piece by Bill Viola which borrows from the ‘Matyrs, (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) permanently shown in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
We had to find a way to install the monitors onto a structure that could only rest on the altar without being fixed in any way. After much designing and thinking, we came up with a solid substructure that wraps around the altar holding itself in place without fixings. The result is stunning.
Have a look at the Wallpaper article for the videos here and read the Guardian article here.
We were honoured to be asked to build and install the first show ever in the UK of the work of Yves Saint Laurent at the Bowes Museum in 2015. This spectacular show was designed in conjunction with the Pierre Bergé Fondacion to showcase the best of the great designer’s masterpieces. We had six technicians on the build for 3 weeks with many of the plinths prefabricated by Ian Watson and Sunghoon Son during this period, and a week of the six of us on site to install the show itself.
Read the write up in Harpers Bazaar where we are mentioned here.
When Vickers decided to donate the Challenger Tank that stood outside its doors for many years to the Discovery Museum, they realised that they had to make it safe to display. We were asked to build a fake crate to surround the tank which would do the job of protecting it from the passing public and protecting the public from the urge to climb on it and possibly fall off. The project was great fun and the illusion of the tank bursting out of its crate was quite startling.
The National Glass Centre in Sunderland has opened 2014 with an exhibition of spectacle design by Oliver Goldsmith representing three generations of the family business. It showcases the designs that made them famous for turning spectacles into fashion items, along with the movie stars and models that in turn made the designs famous. Williams Design Associates planned and designed the exhibition and we fabricated the display cases, painted and installed the show.
In September 2013 we were asked to build this arresting artwork by CIRCA projects for Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan. This huge 9 metre high wall was built onto a scaffolding tower, as we could not screw into the listed interior of the Stephenson works. The whole build took 4 technicians 5 days from start to finish.
The home of the Earls Grey and famous for its spectacular gardens, Howick Hall Gardens near Alnwick have just opened a new visitor centre in what was the entrance to the Hall itself. Colin Williams of Williams Design Associates designed and project managed the works with his trademark finesse and elegance. With Colin’s vision for the space explained, we designed the brackets for the displays and asked Craig Knowles, artist and blacksmith, to fabricate them all. (To see Craig’s website click here.) Once in place, we attached the rails to the brackets and hung the cable assemblies and artwork.
‘Immerse’, a monolithic stand built for the Surface Area Dance Theatre and installed in Durham train station for the BRASS 2012, the Durham Brass Festival.
Once again we had the pleasure of working with Woodhorn Museums and County Archives on their large exhibition for early 2013. It showcased 40 award winning British costume designs from BAFTA and Oscar winning movies. Costumes worn by Keira Knightley in The Duchess are on show, along with some worn by Kate Winslett, Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean, Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love, and Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech.
The 2012 exhibition of Turner prize winner Mark Wallinger covered two floors of Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and emblazoned the exterior of the building too. We were involved in helping install the thousands of brick slips bought in to create a fake ‘exterior’ interior wall. A unique number was written on each brick after installation. The river stones were sorted into size, placed on a repeating chessboard pattern and individually numbered.
We were recently asked to design and build a lectern for an exhibition in March 2013. The sketchup drawings we made gave us the basis for the fabrication idea, and we ended up making the radius of the curve smaller in order to provide easier access for wheelchair users. The lamp contains a camera which picks up a fiducial marker printed on the left hand page of an open book, so that when the book is browsed, a projector will display more visual content relevant to the content on the right hand page. The power and data cables are embedded into the spine of the stand allowing the design of the lectern to dominate visually.
