A new steel art sculpture by Fiveways artist, Bruce Williams, is due to be unveiled in Moulsecoomb in the next few weeks.
The sculpture, One Moulsecoomb, was commissioned by McLaren Property developers to accompany the 380-bed student housing block in Moulsecoomb Way.
The names of 560 Moulsecoomb residents have been cut out of steel panels and welded to support structures, to be installed in the next couple of weeks.
Mr Williams said: “I really liked this idea of a kind of lattice, lace of names. All these people, shoulder to shoulder with each other, like the people living in Moulsecoomb with everyone kind of supporting one another.
“The idea came from the address – the address of the building is One Moulsecoomb Way.”
Mr Williams said that a variety of typefaces, handwriting and boldness is used for each name.
He said: “The writing, to a great extent, reflects the person as well.”
To gather the names, Mr Williams “turned up” at community hotspots, including the Moulsecoomb boxing gym, The Bevy, and Moulsecoomb Community Market and The Keep.
The structure includes the names of cats, deceased family members, and one family even included “baby” as the name of their unborn child at the time.
The corten steel (sometimes known as weathered steel) is fresh and clean now, but over the next couple of months it will develop a protective layer of orange rust as it settles into its new home.
Mr Williams said: “I like the idea of having a metal structure which will age as well, it’s not going to be frozen in time.”
The artist has been updating the community on Instagram, where he shows how the process of laser cutting and welding works.
Mr Williams worked with Cirrus Laser in Burgess Hill and Weldtec Welding Services in Small Dole to help bring the sculpture to life.
The next projects for the artist include a piece for the development in Edward Street, as well as a project in Devon.
Oh great a unemployed check list.
Oh, student housing blocks yet again, yawn. Hopefully, the students may appreciate it, but it means zilch to anyone else.
Hopefully Mr Williams got paid by the developers for his metal-working efforts, but I do totally despair at this place with the ever-increasing number of student blocks (are they fully occupied, I ask, because I have heard that they’re more expensive than HMOs and that many students would and do prefer the freedom of an HMO).
Time to curb the universities and their hanger-on developers, I think.
This has been installed today one word. SHOCKING.
As expected really, Mark.
I don’t know who you are, obviously, whether student or otherwise, but it would be very interesting to know what a lot of those who live with it/near it, pass by it or whatever actually think of it.
Do you have a photo of it in situ by any chance? If so, perhaps you could send it to B&H News so that all of us know what it looks like.
Wow, I didn’t even know there were 560 locals left. I sure this will mollify their anger over studentification. I hope the artist didn’t suffer too much cognitive dissonance producing this developers
obvious shill.