a river mapped in limestone

Art and Monuments

16 Jul

Course and Flow by Rachael Champion

Carving the sculpture on the 5 axis machine

The project

Course and Flow, a work by Rachael Champion was commissioned by St William Property Developers and Dallas-Pierce-Quintero, the architects working with them on the Hornsey Park Clarendon development in the Haringey Heartlands Regeneration scheme.

Fabrication

Artwork showing inscriptions — Artwork showing the inscriptions and the river

The piece was fabricated by stoneCIRCLE from a 4 ton block of Mandale Derbyshire Fossil limestone; the largest that was available at the time. Champion was inspired by the Moselle Brook, a hidden stream that flows through the borough of Haringey, and created a topographical map with the river delineated in blue resin. Words, phrases, and places relating to the Moselle and its route were carved into the block’s surface creating a feeling of its social history and the context in which it exists.

The artist is interested in the juxtaposition of nature and the built environment: she deliberately left the bore holes from the quarry and the registration marks from the CNC machinery visible in the finished work. The sides of the block were also left untouched to provide a seating area for residents and visitors, and to highlight the physical transformation that the stone has undergone.

It took stoneCIRCLE 3 weeks to complete the work which spent a week being carved on the 5-axis machine before being transferred to the workshop for the designs and inscriptions to be carved, and the river channel to be filled with blue epoxy resin.

To make it easier to transport the underside was milled out, making the weight of the finished piece approximately 2500 kg. Its finished dimensions are 65 cm x 110 cm x 265 cm. It was craned into place and inaugurated by the Mayor of Haringey at a ceremony in October 2020.