Articulate 2019

In 2019 I was commissioned to make a piece of work in response to the Bowes Museum collection. As a kinetic sculptor working with the most complex working automata in the World, the Silver Swan, was a natural choice. I decided to focus on the organic movement of the neck. I researched the original mechanism and have recreated it’s sinuous turns and movements using modern materials and techniques. It has been fascinating to access the mechanical movement which drives the Swan and to research and work with Matthew Read who has spent many years unlocking it’s secrets. After weeks of planning, drawing, measuring and perhaps most importantly thinking, I constructed my own version of the mechanism using modern materials and coding, combined with more traditional metal working techniques which would have been familiar to the craftsmen who made it.

Film - John Coombes