The Artist’s Garden
The Artist’s Garden has transformed a 1400sqm hidden and neglected roof terrace above Temple tube station into a place for the public to experience large-scale life affirming artistic interventions by women artists.
PLAN YOUR VISIT
Address: On the roof of Temple tube station, London, WC2R 2PH
Opening Hours: Open daily, 8am - dusk.
FREE and OPEN TO ALL. Please note the site is only accessible via steps.
Current Exhibitions: Holly Hendry ‘Slackwater,’ Holly Stevenson, Frances Richardson with Annabel Tennyson-Davies in residence
The roof terrace is part of the Victoria Embankment, a bold reclamation of land beside the Thames conceived and built by Sir Joseph Bazalgette between 1865–1870 to resolve the ‘Great Stink’. This feat of Victorian engineering turned muddy foreshores into public spaces, with roads and walkways overhead, and tunnels for trains, water and waste beneath. Also thought to be on the site of the seventeenth century garden of Lord and Lady Arundel, who together collected England’s first great classical sculpture collection. Visitors would have alighted from the Thames and walked through the garden to Arundel House, situated next to Somerset House and the other great palaces of the Strand.
The Artist's Garden opened in 2021 with Lakwena's technicolour vision of Paradise ‘Back in the Air: A Meditation on Higher Ground’. In 2022, it took visitors ‘Through the Cosmic Allotment’ by Heywood & Condie to celebrate our ability to find spiritual and psychic affinity with the non-human world. In 2023, Holly Hendry’s first public commission in London and her most expansive to date, Slackwater, weaves together the watery history of its riverside location, with references to the abstract rhythms of the Thames and liquid movements within the human body.
Alongside the site-wide commissions, the 'Women's Work’ programme creates opportunities for artists to gain experience of the complex processes of realising outdoor sculpture in public space and to spend time in the Artist's Hut drawing and thinking. Vistors are invited to make and talk with every artist in residence. We invite the winner of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park/ Royal College of Art Graduate Sculpture Award every year to make work for the garden including Abigail Norris and Camilla Bliss. Other invited artists include Holly Stevenson.
On the roof of Temple tube station
The Artist’s Garden is realised in close partnership with and supported by Westminster City Council.
EXHIBITED ARTISTS
EVENTS
Transforming Public Space, Sculpturally: The Artist’s Garden
Claire Mander in conversation with Holly Hendry
Wednesday 24th April 2024, 5-9pm
5pm: Meet at The Artist’s Garden to view Slackwater
6.15pm: Doors open at the Royal Society of Arts
6.30pm: Talk begins
7.30pm: Drinks available in the RSA Bar
Join us and leading commissioner Claire Mander of theCOLAB discussing the sculptural transformation of public space in the context of The Artist's Garden and artist Holly Hendry's intervention 'Slackwater'. The event will begin with an encounter of her work at The Artist's Garden before walking over to RSA House for the in conversation and drinks.
theCOLAB unites people, land and art by commissioning epic, life-affirming and career-defining sculptural works in undervalued and underused outdoor public spaces. The Artist's Garden, on the roof of Temple tube station, with 85 metres of river frontage and only a 7-minute walk from RSA is a popular public open barrier free destination for the contemplation and appreciation of the power of sculptural interventions by women artists. Holly Hendry is a sculptor whose work embraces scale, place and public and she will talk about the conception and execution of 'Slackwater', her first London and most expansive work to date. It is an immense sculptural entanglement that weaves together the watery history of its riverside location, with references to the abstract rhythms of the Thames and liquid movements within the human body. Drawn to changes in the pattern of the river's surface, she constructed the 35 metre long work with industrial-scale ducting, curled around electricity spools and over casts of inflated boat fenders to create a work that ebbs and flows across the site's architecture. The artist's visual language is drawn from ancient depictions of floods and rivers, and 19th century microscopic images of Thames water, described as 'monster soup', a bacterial slurry teeming with surreal, animated forms.
About the Artist's Garden
The Artist's garden has transformed a 1400sqm hidden and neglected roof terrace above Temple tube station into a place for the public to experience large-scale life affirming artistic interventions by women artists. Situated next to Somerset House and accessible by steps from Temple Place, it has extensive views and a vibrant programme of artist commissions large and small, artists residencies in the Artist's Hut and an education programme for 13-16 year olds. It is open to the public all day every day for FREE from 8am with seasonal closing times at dusk. Everyone welcome! thecolab.art or info@thecolab.art for more information.