Golden Tops is a site-specific installation of sculptural ‘sand castles’ made from a mixture of concrete and hay cast, which are a new-fashioned version of traditional building materials such as cob & abode.

‘I love the poor. I have divided my fortune with them. The poor man’s labour is the rich man’s wealth, and without your toil, the kingdom is worth nothing. While I am free you shall never be slaves.’ – Charles Turner (1727-1783)

The work is also a conceptual response to Turner’s famous speech from Westminster Hall (1774), intending to highlight Turner’s in the modern day and provoke discussion about our current distribution of wealth and exploring our current disconnection from those in need.

At the end of Festival of Thrift, the sculptures will be given a new lease of life, with audience members being invited to sign up to re-house the individual sculptures and take them away at the end of the festival. On receiving a sculpture, the new owners will be asked to send a photograph of the sculpture in its new setting to the artist to form a new body of work.