Making the animals for the Apothecary's Garden - UCLH

We are looking at locally sourced stone rather than an imported option. With regard to colour & texture, we looked for a good contrast with both the planting and the granite of the planter wall. The durability of the stone is also a consideration and also its ease of cleaning, suggesting a more polished finish. The final choice of stone was made in consultation with the Hospital Trust.

The Stone Animals

Working with our good friend Stone carver Adrian Wright - and his ability to capture the essence of the sleeping animals within the stone.

Installation of the sleeping animals in the Apothecary’s Garden at UCLH - November 2020

The Duck

The Fox

The Apothecary's Garden - The things of this world

Proposal for the UCLH Garden

clay models of the animals

CONCEPT

To undergo Proton Beam Therapy is to leave for a moment the familiar world.  The patient enters a hi-tech environment so alien to their everyday experience they might as well be an astronaut on a mission to Mars.

Afterwards, it is as though they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and have to reacquaint themselves with the things of this world.  In this somewhat shell-shocked spirit they find the Apothecary’s Garden.

The Apothecary’s Garden is a place of healing.  It is a haven of peace after Proton Beam Therapy and it contains plants from which to make medicine.  But its greatest potential to heal lies in the fact it is a garden.  A garden in which there are things like plants to help the patient remember the world they know.

We would like to build on this idea and bring a little more of the natural world around us into this place.  Plants belong with animals, and we have in mind a series of animal sculptures carved in stone and set into the wall of each planter.  We hope, through the familiarity of our chosen animals and a softness in the design of our sculptures, to enhance the soothing and therapeutic effect of the Apothecary’s Garden.

We would love to develop a series of hand hold pieces - celebrating the tactile nature of these sleeping animals.

More information about how this project developed to follow.