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Proposal for a monumental sculpture in seven parts for St. James’s Park by Buckingham Palace. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Publicness’, Institute of Contemporary Arts, January 28–March 16, 2003, London.
Seven professional so-called ‘little people’, traditionally referred to as ‘dwarfs’, were cast through Michael Bongar Entertainment in New York in December 2002. I asked that they send photos of themselves in their own casual contemporary dress, no costume, and to strike poses that are natural to their own body language.
The composite image above (with myself posing for scale reference by the palace) presents the first stage in a proposal that aims at casting these models—at three times their human scale—at a 3D scanning and modeling workshop in California that typically serves Hollywood’s special effects industry. Placed in the landscape of the park, the project, while making obvious allusions to Snow White, garden gnomes and other mythologies, also deals with traditional sculptural issues of craft, material, scale, realism and illusion.
During the show at the ICA, I received an angry letter. It was posted next to the photograph in the gallery for public view during the reminder of the show.
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