The official take on Conrad Shawcross’s new sculpture, which now hangs from the roof of St Pancras International, is that the giant rotating work, The Interpretation of Movement (a 9:8 in blue) (2017), is “a celebration of mechanics and engineering”. The latest commission in the station’s Terrace Wires public art programme is an awesome technical feat, with its three articulated arms stretching out to a 16m span and all driven by an incredibly complex gearing system.
Yet although the sculpture was conceived before the UK’s referendum on withdrawing from the European Union, at the grand unveiling yesterday (22 June) Shawcross confessed that he now can’t help but view the piece in terms of Brexit. After all, it hovers directly above the Eurostar platforms—“the front is in the EU and the back faces the UK”, as he puts it. And also let’s not forget that Shawcross was one of the artists who made a significant contribution to the Build Bridges not Walls campaign a few months ago, unfurling a banner along London’s Westminster Bridge.
Certainly, as The Interpretation of Movement methodically turns above the station concourse, with its three blue-ribbed optic sails expanding and contracting in their own orbit, both coming together and separating, a Brexit interpretation is irresistible. And the title that Shawcross wanted to give it, “Freedom of Movement”, seems particularly apt. Like all great works, this is one that can resonate with multiple different readings.