Rise 

Almere, Netherlands

Unveiled 2021, by HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands

A young airman sits on the engine that brought him down. Rise is a life-size bronze sculpture resting on the recovered engine block of Short Stirling BK716, shot down over the Netherlands in 1943. He looks out across the memorial field in Bos der Onverzettelijken, caught in a moment of stillness. After decades beneath the Markermeer, the wreckage was recovered and identified; human remains were found, and the seven crew members were buried at Jonkerbos War Cemetery in 2022. By bringing the bronze airman together with the original engine block, Rise connects a recovered object with the lives behind a historical event. Rise collapses the distance between past and present. The war is over, the wreckage remains, and the lives behind it are remembered. It is a memorial to seven men, their youth, and the families who continue to remember them. 

Many thanks to Bronsgieterij Stijlaart, Tiel

Commisioned

Commissioned by the Municipality of Almere through an open call, the work was unveiled by HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands on 12 October 2021, in the presence of relatives from the United Kingdom and Canada. 


The crew of BK716

Sgt Charles Armstrong Bell, 29
F/O John Michael Campbell, 30
F/O Harry Gregory Farrington, 24, RCAF
F/O John Frederick Harris, 29
Sgt Ronald Kennedy, 22
F/Sgt John Francis James McCaw, 20, RCAF
Sgt Leonard Richard James Shrubsall, 30


Films
Omroep Flevoland — Herdenkingsceremonie Short Stirling in Almere, 12 October 2021

National Geographic Nederland-België — Bijzondere berging van vliegtuigwrak uit WOII in het Markermeer, 21 October 2020

Making of Rise
Omroep Flevoland — Documentaire over de Short Stirling, 29 December 2020

Brothers 

Amsterdam, Netherlands

2018

Public Collection:  Rechtbank

Two hands joined together in an eternal handshake. A tool or a weapon. Each the other’s reciprocal reference.  

Originally kinetic, the handshake swung through the gallery. It now rests on a shiny plinth in the entrance hall of the Rechtbank Amsterdam

The handshake is the oldest contract there is, older than signature and older than seal, and this one stands on the boundary: between the court and the city it serves, visible from both sides of the glass.

The work was first exhibited alongside a digital animation composed of sliced handshakes, shaking into one another, drawn from images gathered across time. This collection forms an ongoing archive of a gesture endlessly repeated, yet never quite the same. The archive continues to grow.


Many thanks to the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten

Collection

Held in the public collection of the Rechtbank Amsterdam, the new Amsterdam Courthouse on the Zuidas designed by KAAN Architecten and was completed in 2020.

Rijksakademie

The work was made during my residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. A related forty-minute ongoing digital animation with sound was presented at the ICA, London, in 2018.