“Figures is a mass-sculptural performance that makes visible the human cost of austerity and urges action against it.”

#WeAreFigures

Listen to the stories of austerity being read aloud during the firing
Read text version of the austerity stories

Using excavated raw river mud and taking up residence on the streets and foreshore of central London, artist-activist Liz Crow sculpted 650 small human figures, each one representing an individual at the sharp end of austerity. Coinciding with tide times on the nearby Thames, at the incoming tide, the newly-sculpted figures were moved to safety. At each low tide, the artist returned to sculpt more figures, in an endurance ritual that spanned 11 consecutive days and nights in all weathers.

Though made in the same form, each figure differed in its detail, representing both common humanity and the individual. Their number echoed the 650 constituencies throughout which the effects of austerity are felt, as well as the number of MPs whose choices determine the choices of others

Once dried, the figures toured en masse in a mobile exhibition that visited locations from London to Bristol over five days, the figures making visible the stark human cost of austerity and creating a talking point for members of the public to grapple with the questions raised by the work.

In Bristol, the figures were returned to foreshore and raised into a cairn. A bonfire burned into the night, firing the figures, while their corresponding stories of austerity were read aloud until the returning tide doused the flames. The figures, fired, burned and broken, were reclaimed, gathered and ground down to dust.

In the final phase of the performance and on the first day of the new government’s tenure, the ground remains of the figures were scattered back to water, taken out to sea as a poignant reminder of the human cost of austerity and a call to the international community to take heed.

Rooted in symbolism, ranging across worldwide ‘mud men’ mythology and the cycle of life, the firing and crushing of human aspiration, the bearing witness of the cairn and the dispersal and forgetting of stories of social injustice, Figures will be a work that is multi-layered and uncompromising, yet simple and tender in message.

The 650 stories of people at the sharp end of austerity are drawn from leading-edge research, Parliamentary records and campaigns in the field of social justice. Covering a range of topics, including benefits reform, local authority spending, homelessness, malnutrition, NHS rationing, and so on, they have been selected to represent a spectrum of experience. Volunteer stewards, from campaigning and arts curatorial backgrounds, attended the performance, drawing on these stories and supporting members of the public in conversation about the issues raised by the work.

Timed to coincide with the 2015 UK general election and subsequent newly-formed government, Figures raises profound questions about how we treat each other, what kind of society we want to be, and what role we might each of us have in bringing that about.