Hasta La Ideas

Combs, lighters and babies’ dummies are among the hundreds of objects found washed up on British beaches and then hung in the atrium of a new London cancer centre by designer Stuart Haygarth.

Stuart Haygarth was asked by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to create a permanent installation for a new Macmillan cancer centre in central London.

Called Strand, the artwork comprises hundreds of objects found during a 500-mile coastal walk from Gravesend in Kent to Land’s End in Cornwall.

The objects were categorised by colour and suspended from the hospital’s atrium as if exploding outwards, an approach that Haygarth has used before to make chandeliers from debris such as spectacle lenses and plastic bottles.

“You can see from the collections of objects the variety is immense – an archive of mass production,” Haygarth told Dezeen.

“The categories I found were toys, gloves, shoes, combs, buoys, disposable lighters, fibreglass from boats, brushes, floor vinyl, handles, balls, packaging, lids from containers, balls, artificial flowers, fishing equipment, spades, babies’ dummies, plastic buckets and wheels,” he said.

The most common objects were plastic disposable lighters and tampon applicators, he added, while the most unusual was a pink plastic drinking straw in the shape of a penis, found in Margate in Kent.

Haygarth also documented his journey with a travelogue of photographs, now displayed in a map cabinet on the first floor of the hospital alongside photographs of the objects grouped by category.

Strand can be viewed between 9am and 5pm in the ground floor atrium of the Macmillan Cancer Centre, Huntley Street, London WC1E 6AG.

We featured a selection of Haygarth’s suspended chandeliers as part of our Designed in Hackney series earlier this year.

Other projects by Haygarth on Dezeen include an installation of picture frame offcuts on a marble staircase in the V&A museum and a movie filmed at Design Miami of Haygarth explaining his Drop chandelier.

See all our stories about Stuart Haygarth »
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Photographs are by Haygarth.

Here’s a statement from the artist:

At some point in time cancer will affect most of us, either directly or indirectly through people we know. It has become one of our greatest fears. Dealing with the disease is both a mental and physical journey and throws the diagnosed into the unknown.

Strand was commissioned by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a permanent artwork installed within the ground floor atrium space of the UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre, Huntley Street, London WC1E 6AG.

The suspended artwork is the culmination of a 500 mile coastal walk from Gravesend to Lands End during 2011. Throughout the journey Haygarth collected man made objects washed ashore by the sea which formed an archive, fragments from people’s lives.

The objects were categorized by colour, ranging through the colour spectrum from white to black. The mass of suspended objects form a harmonious explosion which is frozen in time.

Displayed on the first floor are a series of large photographs showing collections of objects from the Strand and an oak display case with map and postcards describing the journey. The artwork can be viewed during opening times from Monday- Friday 09.00 – 17.00

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by Stuart Haygarth appeared first on Dezeen.