Liverpool Plinth artist Alan Dunn explains meaning behind prize-winning ‘chair’ sculpture

The Liverpool Plinth is the North's answer to London's Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and celebrates sculptors working in the North of England.

Transcript

00:00Alan Dunne has been unveiled as the winner of the inaugural Liverpool Sculpture Prize.

00:04His work, Ascension, takes a component from a famous public artwork in Liverpool

00:07and repurposes it to talk about loneliness within society.

00:1127 years ago, myself and another artist created a work for London Road called Ray and Julie.

00:17It was meant to last for six months before the trams came and London Road would be gentrified.

00:22Glasgow-born artist Alan Dunne's been based in the city region since 1995,

00:27the year he co-created the Ray and Julie sculpture with Bridget Durack.

00:31At the time we saw Ray and Julie as a couple that lived in London Road,

00:34a little bit down and out maybe. We made two chairs and they're actually based on

00:40Charles Rennie McIntosh chairs from the Glasgow School of Art,

00:42which is where me and the other artist met and fell in love, so it's a nice personal story.

00:45Nobody ever knew who Ray and Julie were, but in this new work they're separated.

00:49Ray had the plinth and Julie left behind on London Road.

00:52So Ray and Julie were meant to stay there temporarily and it was commissioned by the

00:55Furniture Resource Centre, so hence it was two chairs sinking into the ground.

01:00They stayed for 27 years. The people of Liverpool adopted them, fell in love with them and used

01:04them as a place of solace and have their lunch there or up to all sorts of no good as well.

01:10And then we decided after 27 years to decommission the work.

01:15Alan's work was chosen by a panel of judges from the art world and Liverpool's business

01:19and civic communities from submissions from artists across the UK.

01:23And then there came this opportunity and just a little brainwave, I thought what if we just

01:26give one of them an extra life or so we've had gained secret access to their old sculpture,

01:32taken half of it away and brought it to the plinth here.

01:35Liverpool's Sculpture Prize, created and managed by Liverpool Big Company and Liverpool

01:38Parish Church, is open to any sculptor working and living in the UK. The work will be displayed

01:43at Liverpool Parish Church on the plinth overlooking Chapel Street for the next 12 months.

01:48I hope it's not a sad piece. I hope this is like liberation for both of them.

01:52We've been together for 27 years and things happen and then suddenly they've got a life,

01:58they've got an afterlife.