Join us to celebrate the triumphant unveiling of Hannah Hoebeke’s first public sculpture! At nearly 2 metres high Women of the Cabmen’s Shelter is a brave leap into the world of public sculpture for the artist; and, for the viewer, a glimpse into the world of women cabbies through their portraits and the architectural structures made for them. 

As the sixth recipient of theCOLAB/Royal College of Art/Yorkshire Sculpture Park Graduate Award, Hoebeke spent nine months as artist in residence in the Artist’s Hut at the Artist’s Garden, continuing her exploration of the people who we often do not see, but who make a place what it is.  While studying for her MA Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, Hoebeke successfully infiltrated the workforce.  Seeking out the stories and faces of the people on whose shoulders the functioning of the organisation rests, but who would never be considered worthy of a portrait, she set about telling their stories, sculpturally, in the time-honoured medium of clay.  

The Artist’s Garden, however, presented a new challenge.  Far from being a static, predictable, sedentary workplace, she found a place of constant change, intent on evolving – our perception of women, sculpture and public space, day by day, season by season.  Wedged between a 14-storey building, under construction since 2012 on one side, and the churning Thames on the other, Hoebeke found a constant in the small but defiant structure of the Cabmen’s Shelter on Temple Place, painted in Dulux Buckingham Paradise Green.  As one of only 13 remaining of the 61 Cabmen’s Shelters originally built, and the furthest east, it offers shelter, sustenance and an anchor to London’s black cab drivers, who are always on the move.

For Hoebeke, the Cabman’s Shelter became the portal into the world of the black cabbies and the start of her search for the women amongst them.  The search was harder than she anticipated, unsurprising given that only about 2% of black cab drivers are women, which equates to about 400 out of the 17,600 driving around the streets of London.  Find them she did, and she listened to their stories of the freedom to choose when to work and where and to be one’s own boss, of the loneliness of the job, the rigorous training to memorise all 25,000 streets and landmarks of the capital without the aid of satellite navigation, of the scarcity of other women in the trade, of the solidarity of the women across the group chats and occasions to come together, albeit rarely, inside the male domain of the Cabmen’s Shelters. 

Hoebeke’s work is characterised by playful provocation. She softens the upright Victorian rigidity of the Cabmen’s Shelter:  she feminises it, she suggests it is capable of change.  From its melting walls emerge the portraits of real, named, women cabbies, sheltered by their own, slightly surreal but perfectly well-appointed roof.  They now inhabit the realm of architectural relief, which once vivified the facades of London, drawing into full harsh angular focus the mundanity of the contemporary façade, unspecific to place, belonging nowhere.

It is the few women not their male peers, or indeed the great and good, the politicians and businessmen who hail them, that the Artist portrays.  She is disrupting the canon of portraiture not just in her choice of sitter, but also by elevating them beyond the intimacy of the portrait bust, viewed by few often in the context of a grand aristocratic interior.  They are now part of the canon of public sculpture, begging the question of who is portrayed and celebrated in our public spaces. 

Hannah Hoebeke says, “Working in the Artist’s Garden was a really special experience, its central location in London made it very accessible for doing community-based work, and being right next to the Cabmen’s Shelter meant I could work closely with taxi drivers as part of that process. As a sculptor, it's incredible to be offered the challenge to design a piece truly for a public space like this – especially bringing these figures of unseen labour into public space, and I hope to be able to continue this in the future.”

Claire Mander says, “During this residency, Hannah Hoebeke has gone through the sculptural equivalent of The Knowledge of the black cab drivers.  She has courageously faced the challenges, learnt the processes and requirements both material and structural and has created her first public sculpture.  A serious achievement which is only made possible by the valuable advice and guidance given both by structural engineers at WSP UK and the technicians at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Westminster City Council is to thank for supporting the Artist’s Garden and encouraging its educational mission.”

With special and enormous thanks to Sarah Staton RCA, Alex Hodby and the technicians at Yorkshire Sculpture Park Simon Skirrow, Adrianne Murray-Neil, Jude from the Cabmen’s Shelter, Lee for rallying black cab drivers, Bill Price, Daniel Cowan, Nicola Lines and Annabel Mair of WSP UK for their structural engineering advice.

 About theCOLAB / RCA / YSP Graduate Award

Originally established in 2015, the Award took on an expanded form when theCOLAB was invited to select the winner(s) following the pandemic in 2021.  theCOLAB offers a residency and the opportunity for an artist graduating from Royal College of Art’s MA Sculpture programme to undertake a residency in the Artist’s Hut, to have vital exposure to the public and to be taken through the complex process of creating outdoor public sculpture.  It provides vital support and a platform for thinking and making at the critical transition stage from being a student to independent artist. This builds on YSP’s long-standing commitment to supporting artists at every stage of their career. The award is bespoke to each recipient and establishes long-term relationships and opportunities.  Alex Hodby (YSP) and Claire Mander (theCOLAB) selected Hannah Hoebeke from the RCA MA Sculpture Degree Show in 2025.  She joins Camilla Bliss, Abigail Norris, Rong Bao, Annabel Tennyson-Davies and Flora Duley as recipient of the award.

About Hannah Hoebeke

Hannah Hoebeke is an artist from Ghent, Belgium, whose sculptures play with the dialogue of artist and sitter. She reanimates traditional studio portrait sitting by relocating the encounter from the exclusive space of the studio into a social environment. With its strong physical presence, sculpture offers a unique way to foster interaction. Its ability to occupy space invites engagement, creates shared experiences, and brings people together. The sculpting process itself becomes a way to slow down and create space for deeper conversations. It is not just about the outcome, but about the shared time and presence that clay allows. Hoebeke’s s artistic practice takes place in a community setting. She observes that, in today’s society, people are becoming disconnected from their surroundings and from one another fostered by neoliberal values. Her emphasis on the relationship between artist and sitter combats these tendencies and reconnects. Although her activism was not initially present in her work, it has gradually started to creep in and now plays a more significant role in her practice. Hoebeke graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (2022) and holds MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London (2025).   She lives and works in London.

About the Artist’s Garden

The Artist’s Garden was a neglected public space, reclaimed as a platform for women artists and launched in 2021.  Built by Sir Joseph Bazalgette in 1870 as part of Victoria Embankment to resolve the ‘Great Stink’, it is thought to be on the site of Lord and Lady Arundel’s seventeenth century garden where they displayed England’s first classical sculpture collection. The 1,400 sqm space is invisible from street level and reached by well-worn steps at the top of which a massive space opens up, offering spectacular views from the Houses of Parliament to Tate Modern.  The Artist’s Garden opened in October 2021 with Lakwena’s ‘Back in the Air: a Meditation on Higher Ground’. Growing organically and overlaying the first, the second major commission by Heywood & Condie, ‘Through the Cosmic Allotment’ explores plant human communication through landscapes installed in four greenhouses exploring aspects of our cosmic understanding of landscape. This was followed by Holly Hendry’s first public sculpture in London ‘Slackwater’, MARY MARY a nine artist strong exhibition of the contrary and cacophonous work of women artists and now hosts ‘SCULPTURE IN THREE ACTS: PEAKE, LINDER, MONSEIGNAT’. 

The Artist’s Garden’ is supported by and realised in partnership with Westminster City Council.  With thanks to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Royal College of Art, WSP UK. The Artist’s Garden and its collaboration with RCA/YSP will continue until at least 31 May 2027.

For more information, images or to arrange an interview please contact info@thecolab.art and visit www.thecolab.art