The work consists of a series of cast iron grave markers, which have been fabricated using the artist’s original designs and relate to the share certificates and historical documents of commercial companies, which no longer exist or have undergone transformation through takeovers, bankruptcy, nationalisation or other economic or political changes.
Brunswick Cemetery was established around 1770 and later, it became a Unitarian burial ground until 1963 when it became a public park. The gardens retain a number of historic features including monuments, boundary walls and a Georgian mortuary chapel. Since the mid 1980s, the cemetery has been used as a public park and, following extensive re-landscaping in 2010, is now known as Brunswick Cemetery Gardens, which received a Planting Places Award in 2011.
For Ruined, Hew Locke overlaid the company information from historical documents with other forms such as drips, slashes and shrouds, and casts from objects such as cheap jewellery. In some cases, these layers obscure the underlying information and in others, draw our attention to it. Some of the companies will be well known locally for their connections to Bristol’s trade history, whilst others tell of more recent global events. Ruined points to the inevitable stories of rise and fall underpinning our economy and the boom and bust of global trade.
