Ruined, Sarah Sabin, 202, Plaster of Paris, cast and carved. Varied forms as multiple of 4. Approx. 5cmx5cmx5cm.

Informed by the destruction of cultural artefacts from conflict, and other forms of deliberate damage. Each object is from the human body.

Sabin's sculptures balance in the ruins of one of the richest and most powerful Benedictine monasteries in England. 

Stones Walking
 
One day we’ll all look up
and see the stones walking.
One by one, slow and monumental
they wake, stretching time thin again.
Gently
testing the rigid muscles in feet and mouth,
groaning through lips that were never to make a sound.
Still, strong stone that would never bow 
now begins to bend
at the hip, then straightens out again.
Still, sustained by a stone heart,
alien ancient Romans and Greeks,
their path through pavement is cast and carved.
Old but alive,
straining under the weight of constant watching eyes.
Dust breaks and falls from their bones, 
statues of stone
people walking, cracking, crumbling and leaving
a trail behind.
 
Faith Falayi

NO LONGER A MONUMENTAL SILENCE
 
We had to face-up to it,
no longer guessing at what it meant,
as first an ear, then a nose,
followed by lips and two toes,
individually cast in plaster,
were parcelled-up and sent.
 
‘Let that be a warning’
the accompanying message read.
‘Next time it will be the whole body,
followed by the severed head.’
 
‘No more 
‘hear-no, speak-no, smell-no evil 
‘tip-toeing round the white man’s past,
‘but pulling down his monuments
‘bit by bit, piece by piece,
‘cast by plaster cast’.
 
Phil Barrett

Sarah Sabin's work has been concerned for a number of years with 'digging about under the surface'. This often involves a gathering of histories, taken from both locations and people, and a dissecting, and reassembling of them. Methods and processes used in Archaeology often play a part directly in the research and making of her work, and she uses a wide range of media. She has an MA in Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) Twitter @sarahesabin Instagram @sarahesabin www.sarahsabin.co.uk

Faith Falayi Faith Falayi is a young poet based in Peterborough. In 2020 she was selected the first Peterborough Young Poet Laureate. ​
https://syntaxpoetryfestival.wordpress.com/peterborough-young-poet-laureate-2020/
​
Phil Barrett taught art for 27 years, then retired to his home county of Norfolk where he concentrates on writing. He teaches creative writing, in schools and libraries across North Norfolk. He has won prizes and commendations in national competitions, and has been published in anthologies including In Protest: 150 poems for Human Rights (2013), Word Aid Anthologies Did I Tell You? (2010), and Not Only The Dark (2011), the Ink, Sweat and Tears webzine, and Poems in the Waiting Room in 2016 and 2019. In January 2017 he published a book of poems, Writing Me, about growing-up. ​​

Irene Perez Hernandez has definitely hit on something - boredom is all around us. More examples honoured today in St Andrews Street South and the Cattle Market car park. 

Landmarks to Lockdown
 
Caution! 
The warning
might be an emblem 
of community unravelling. 
 
Ready-made blocks,
like blunted senses, 
are banal, 
not even Brutalist.
 
A shed on a bed
of flowers in 
a central space
- assembled in apathy.
  
If no one cares
to collaborate 
the building blocks  
of creativity break.
 
Deborah Bowkis 

Irene Perez Hernandez studied in her native Spain before gaining an Erasmus Grant for an exchange programme at Middlesex University, and going on to study for an MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a sculptor, working in a wide range of media, seeking to redefine the relationship between sculpture and object, and challenge the conventions associated with the discipline. 

​Recent residences include the Guest Studio of Cologne Culture Department. Cologne, Germany in 2019 and Artist in Residence at Taubenturm, Diessen am Ammersee, Germany in 2018. For further details see https://ireneperezhernandez.com Twitter IrenePerezH

Deborah Bowkis has published through competition prizes and in anthologies, including Ink Pantry Sea of Ink and Voices of the Brecks. She currently works as an academic and has taught creative writing courses and workshops in Suffolk. In 2016 she set up a thriving creative writing group, Left to Write, in Bury St. Edmunds. 
​https://greenacrewriters.blogspot.com, http://www.breakingnewground.org.uk

Tree Stories
 
The sound of wind through leaves
            marks a gathering mood
the rings in their heartwood
            hoard history’s unstable sap
they remember the hide and seek
            of robbers and princes;
in Skiathos there’s a pine tree
            where a Russian icon appeared
a bright Virgin swaying in the sirocco’s
            hot and dusty breath.
 
Sue Burge
 
Twelve 'story sticks' by Ben Coode-Adams occupy the Great Churchyard: making them, they became a memorial to my twenty-eight year-old self, still growing and finding my way. These works are both memorials and images of memorials strung together so that those images can converse with each other and the viewer. 

A branch arches a narrative
of lichen encrusted eyes 
that have witnessed cold sunsets, 
solemn maids creased under windows.
She is available, in mild agony
eyebrows heavy from linens.
Today she will pick the patterns 
of roses.
 
Inside, cloaks eclipse legs
bent on repayment or 
annihilation, awaiting orders
or desiring to flounce,
with hands opaquely holding.
Below them, little cloaks
and arms taut like wire imitating wire.
 
Outside in the meadow, cow’s eyes dart 
up hills and behind set shadows,
leaping with each sparkle across the bank.
On the river the cow finds nothing 
but time, ceaselessly passing.

Marianne Habeshaw

Ben Coode-Adams is an artist who was born and lives in Essex, in the East of England.  He studied Fine Art at The University of Edinburgh and Art in Architecture at the University of East London.  He draws, paints and makes sculpture. Twitter @bencoodeadams Instagram bencoodeadams Facebook Ben Coode-Adams www.bencoodeadams.com

Sue Burge  is a freelance creative writing and film studies tutor based in North Norfolk.  Her four poetry collections are: In the Kingdom of Shadows (Live Canon 2018), Lumière (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2018), The Saltwater Diaries (Hedgehog Poetry Press 2020) and Confetti Dancers (Live Canon 2021).  www.sueburge.uk

​Marianne Habeshaw is an emerging, contemporary poet living in Peterborough/East London. Her work reflects on learnt social behaviours and internal conflicts, written with intimate, frank humour and striking, fulsome imagery. 
Marianne’s first poetry collection Blather Gaps has been recently been awarded the TLC Free Reads Scheme. 

Habeshaw's  poem The Scene is part of LADA, Something Other latest chapter Visions; the poem Sandpaper Hands is included in  their upcoming Unseen! 4 with Unseen Words and Visuals Collective; poems Puffer Trains and Obtainable Anxiety  are part of Gold Akanbi’s upcoming collection Unbound. Instagram @razmaztaz

I can’t breathe (detail), Alison Carlier, 2021, wax, plaster of Paris, resin

This work shows Laocoon, a Trojan Priest, with his nose cut away. The original sculpture would have been made in the second century BC in Greece.
 
He is said to be The prototypical icon of human agony (N Spivey 2001)
 
In ancient Egypt, statues were often defaced. Monuments of people were thought to represent an interface between life and the supernatural. They believed that a soul could occupy the sculpture of a person, so such vandalism deactivated their strength.
 
Once a body part was damaged it was thought to be unable to perform its purpose any longer.
 
A broken nose meant the spirit ‘stopped breathing’.