Outcrop: Ditchling Beacon 2000

The forms were inspired by visible stages of vegetation growth; the photosynthetic urge upward countered by the increasing weight of the fruit it bears, pulling the structure back towards the earth. The waveform repeated in each structure captured the energy and motion that runs through a field of growing barley. It referred to the subterranean geology and origins of the Sussex landscape once covered by a prehistoric sea, rich with marine life whose skeletal remains comprise the calcite and silica deposits which now make up the chalk and flint Downlands of southern England. OUTCROP evoked ancient interventions in the landscape and the stark experience of haystacks, agricultural buildings and electricity pylons in the open field. Symbolic, ritual, practical, temporary: structures that mark a transitory human presence. 1,000 people walked three miles in the dark to witness the burning of OUTCROP on the Autumn Equinox.