When you make a piece of work
you see things one way
And the piece of work has a life of its own
So how this work is perceived
over time will change and evolve
and that's
how it should be, you know
The idea of who these people are
for me in
The Procession should be timeless
because it needs to stretch beyond
where we are
now
My name is Hew Locke
I'm an artist
Sometimes I'm a sculptor
Sometimes I'm a painter
Sometimes I'm in photography
I was born in Edinburgh
and at the age of five I went to Guyana
And this would have been in the sixties
I arrived just in time for independence
So I saw the flag being designed
We were allowed to stay up at night
to watch the handover
from the British
to Guyanese government
and that had quite an impact on me
And it gave me a lifelong interest
in how nations are formed
and what they choose as their
symbols of nationhood
And that has particular relevance
to Britain
and my approach to this country
and how we accept
what our images are
And that could stretch on even to ideas of
who the national heroes are
of this country
You know. Who gets a statue
and who doesn't get a statue
And all of this stuff then
feeds into ideas of nationhood
and it gives me
inspiration in my particular practice
My work is influenced by many things
and autobiography
is definitely one of them
I arrived in Guyanaas a five year old kid
I went there by boat
because that's what you did in those days
And that had a kind of
I think a deep psychological
impact on me
And I've been making boat sculptures
over the years
and I think it has a direct reference
back to that journey
In Armada
there's nobody on these boats
They're empty of people
but the people who are travelling on it
is you and me
Our minds go into the boats
and we imagine the journey that
we might take on them
The name Guyana means
land of many waters
And to get anywhere
you'd have to go by boat
So it's not surprising
that boats are part of
who I am
They're
containers for people
trying to get to a new
life
They're containers
for a journey through life into death
There are others which have references
to colonial issues
to conquistadors chasing gold
Some others have references
to the Mediterranean refugee crisis
Boats are a metaphor for life basically
The Procession is about certain
universal concerns
and they will always be there
I'm trying to tackle some really
big, wide
subjects over centuries
and how things affect us today
But it's talking about
the echoes of history basically
What I'm trying to do is make something
attractive
to draw people in
And people go
What's that?
What's that mean?
What's that? And then
start to question
what the imagery is all about
It's highly detailed and that's deliberate
So it will
give reward
to longer viewing
There is lots of little bits of evidence
Lots of bits of hints
Lots of bits of clues
The piece can be read as a sort of
puzzle
You know. Which you can piece together
There's beauty there
I would like to think
but it's a complicated messy kind of beauty
What I'm trying to do is create something
which I personally find emotional
and emotionally charged
and emotionally moving
I hope that people will actually
feel that they're part of something
I wanted the work
not to be raised up above people's heads
I realised that
the work needed to be
human scale
We need to identify with these figures
even though they look strange and wearing
weird masks and stuff like that
We need to identify with them
I think of The Procession
as an epic poem
It's a bit
like a kind of national collective unconscious
It becomes part of who we are
So the material sI use
are quite contrasty
Some are quite golden and
flamboyant
and some is quite rough
This is all deliberate
This is because I want different feels
running through the whole thing
It looks as if it's got a history to it
It has some age to it
I've been using
cardboard for many years now
It's a warm material
It's a material
we know. We understand it
As kids we get into cardboard boxes
and they become boats
They become cars
It has a resonance
beyond many other materials
It folds and bends in a particular
way
But also conceptually
cardboard is interesting
It's very very useful
but then it's throwaway
at the same time
It's a disposable thing
What was also crucial to this project
was figuring out that I could have
my own custom made fabric
That made all the difference
So fabric
which I was printing myself
but also
fabric which I was buying at
fabric shops dotted around London
I make work which
there's a lot of difficulty in it
maybe defiance
maybe conflict
but it's about hope you know
It's essential
We can't survive without it
We drown without it
and what's happening
in the Duveen Hall is not
a negative movement of people
It's a positive movement of people
They're moving into another life
You know
They may be coming from difficult times
They may be heading through difficult times
But there's an energy there
which is about hope
The future
Let's make something positive