Boulder

by John Frankland

A public realm commission from PEER and Shoreditch Trust

Shoreditch Park has become a permanent home to a massive piece of solid granite, weighing up to 100 tonnes and measuring over four metres high. Boulder (Shoreditch Park) is an ambitious public realm sculpture project by Hackney-based artist John Frankland. The launch of this work marks the completion of the second phase of the regeneration of Shoreditch Park.

John Frankland is known for his large-scale and pared-down sculptural installations where the materials used and physical space that the work inhabits are carefully integrated, and where considerations around weight and weightlessness are often explored.

In addition to its presence in the Hackney urban landscape, Frankland intends that people should engage with the boulder in a direct and physical way through rock climbing, or ‘bouldering’. A keen and experienced climber himself, Frankland considers physical contact with the rock as a way of energising or activating the work, as well as a way of playfully debunking the notion of those sculptures in park settings, which are often fenced off or prominently labelled as ‘not to be touched’.

Although Boulder (Shoreditch Park) is unique, it is not alone. John Frankland is also responsible for the installation of a second, ‘sister’ boulder in Mabley Green, Hackney.