St. Pancras Wires
We're excited to announce St. Pancras International's brand-new art initiative, St. Pancras Wires.
St. Pancras Wires: New Art Installation
We're excited to announce St. Pancras International's brand-new art initiative, St. Pancras Wires.
The St. Pancras Wires installation follows our iconic Terrace Wires commission, one of the country’s most ambitious public art programmes.
Six emerging and established artists, each with a unique connection to the station, have been shortlisted for the commission to create the new St. Pancras Wires artwork: Rachael Champion, Shezad Dawood, Yinka Ilori, Janetka Platun, Dan Rawlings and Melanie Tomlinson.
The new art piece is set to be unveiled in 2022, and will be suspended from the roof in the modern area of the station next to The Circle and by the Southeastern High Speed platforms.
HS1 Ltd, owner of St. Pancras International, selected the shortlisted artists with producing consultancy Hybrid and through partnerships with Quad in Derby and New Art Exchange in Nottingham. The winning artist will be selected by a judging panel and announced in February 2021.
Meet the shortlisted artists...
Rachael Champion
Rachael's work draws together ecology, industry and the built environment. She often works in large scale, using both natural materials and those found in buildings. She contrasts industrial materials with ecological matter, such as plants, grasses and algae.
Her work responds to places or landscapes and she uses historical research and interesting or unique features of places in her work. Champion wants to express interconnectivity between the built environment and the natural world – something that is becoming paramount as we face climate change.
Champion’s connection to St. Pancras began when she moved to London in 2007 to study at the Royal Academy of Arts with jobs and projects connecting her to the station. At the beginning of lockdown, she was further connected to the station when she moved to Thanet. The station has become her primary transport hub, as she leaves and arrives at her favourite city.
Shezad Dawood
Shezad works across the disciplines of film, performance, painting, sculpture, virtual reality and digital media to explore stories, history and embodiment. He enjoys collaborating with others and sharing knowledge across multiple audiences and communities. He’s fascinated with the esoteric, otherness, the environment and architecture.
Having grown up near Marylebone Road, Dawood feels a natural connection to St. Pancras. He has a fascination with Gothic Architecture and how it interfaces with its neighbouring buildings. Dawood travels to Paris on the Eurostar and did his PhD in Leeds so it has been, and still is, a regular starting point for many journeys for him.
Yinka Ilori
Yinka is a London-based multidisciplinary artist of British-Nigerian heritage. By fusing his British and Nigerian heritage he tells fresh stories in contemporary design. His work is humorous, provocative and fun, with stories to be found in all of his projects. Ilori’s work touches on global themes that resonate with worldwide audiences.
St. Pancras has been the start and end for many trips taken with his extended family to Norfolk. Elements of the neogothic architecture, the colour of the brick, the sound, smell and experience, evoke an entire flock of memories ranging from family excursions to the country to exciting business travel to Europe.
Janetka Platun
Janetka has focused on creating high quality, accessible work that is both thought provoking and visually striking. By igniting dynamic, creative, interventions, her work encourages us to think about our relationship to our surroundings and place, uncovering a deeper sense of belonging.
Themes in her work are our collective search for belonging, ideas of home and how we deal with loss, particularly pertinent during our experience of Covid.
Her interest in the contrast between internal landscapes and external environments resulted in her creating art with people in prison in the UK and Brazil.
Throughout 2019, Platun travelled on the HS1 from St Pancras International to Ashford in Kent to deliver a commission as the first artist in residence at Chilmington. She explored how arts and culture can enhance large-scale housing development to build community and cultural links.
Dan Rawlings
A sympathy for unloved and forgotten relics and a fascination with nature’s resilience has inspired Dan to create visions of a world where man’s impact is being slowly reclaimed by nature. Rawlings considers no technique out of bounds when producing work but is likely best known for his manipulation of metal and light, conceived with intricate hand-plasma cutting.
His signature works cut from vintage handsaws and street signage can be found in collections around the world.
Rawlings travelled extensively on the Euro Tunnel in his twenties, building stages for bands and testing full touring setups in Brussels. For Rawlings, arriving to a different country by Eurostar feels a bit like magic – no matter how many times he does it.
Melanie Tomlinson
Mel's work is passionate about creating visual narratives that involve spaces and communities - human and nature - which are often over-looked or ignored. She focuses on universality and notices small details which she draws into her own memories to weave stories into elaborate and often intricate sculptures.
She is highly experienced working creatively with people who feel excluded, or on the fringes of society, many of whom don’t feel that art is for them.
As a Midlands based artist, Tomlinson often travels to and from St. Pancras, she sees features within the station that make it a special place, noting the open spaces as markers between old and new buildings and how these help guide travellers onwards - to their destinations.