Client: Sunderland City Council
Associates: Steve Almond, Pinsharp 3D
Photos Colin Davison

The first of the two main pieces for the Coast to Coast commission sits at the foundations of the Wear Bridge and the Railway Bridge in Sunderland. Cyclists who cross the country coming across the work will see the sun image as a convex form that rotates as they pass. There is also an animation of a huge solar flare from 2002 within the image. At dusk, light sensors trigger the internal LED light rack, illuminating the image from within the sphere.

In researching how to celebrate the arrival in Sunderland of cyclists completing the final two kilometres of the C2C route, I was also asked to consider the significant history of the area. Various elements came to the fore such as the shipbuilding and port status, which is subtly, referenced in the final work ‘C’ and celebrated in other artist’s works along the route. However, as a global influence of continuing significance, nothing was quite as weighty as, the facts and figures that surrounded the life of, The Venerable Bede, whose, Monastery was located above this site.

Possibly the most significant and famous outcome of Bede’s scientific exploration was calculating Easter through the motions of the sun. A Swiss monk named, Notker the Stammerer, speaks of Bede as being so influential that God made him, “rise from the west as a new sun to illuminate the whole earth.”

Second Sun’, Cast aluminium, stainless steel, large format 3D lenticular animation containing Nasa solar satellite telescope images (1.5m x 5m x 7m). The first of the two main pieces for the commission, sits at the foundations of the Wear Bridge and the Railway Bridge in, Sunderland. The cyclist coming across the work will see the sun image as a convex form that rotates as they pass. There is also an animation of a huge solar flare from 2002 within the image. At dusk, light sensors trigger the internal LED light rack, illuminating the image from within the sphere.

Way Markers

Positioned along the route, these Waymarkers reference our solar systems planets and are set at relative distances from ‘Second Sun’ to the end piece ’C’. When cycling or walking past, the numbers click down the distance to the end from that point.

(Lenticular panels, laminated glass, powder-coated mild steel, orbiting animations)

‘C’, Carved granite sculpture (3m x 3m x 0.4), aligning sun and lighthouse on Easter Sunday when falling on 04/04/10 (then again in 2083).