Two sculptors, Jesse Wine, who was born in Britain, and is based in New York, and the Malaysian artist Haffendi Anuar, have been announced as joint winners of the first commission to create major outdoor sculptures for the Battersea power station development.
Wine’s sculptures will echo the reclining figures of Henry Moore, who showed work in nearby Battersea Park. However, they will include cups, sandwiches and flat caps to suggest a tea break of the power station workers. Anuar will create a site-specific series of columns, traditionally used across Asia to raise dwellings such as fishermen’s huts above the water.
Both works, being created in partnership with the Cass Sculpture Foundation , will be unveiled in September at the Thameside site and will remain in position for three months, to be followed by further indoor and outdoor commissions.
The two artists were chosen by a panel including the Southbank Centre director, Jude Kelly, who is cultural adviser to the site, from an international short list including artists from the UK, Switzerland, Japan and Denmark.
The Grade II-listed power station was one of the largest brick buildings in the world when it was designed in the 1930s by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, but was decaying for decades after it was decommissioned in the 1980s.
Its conversion and the construction of new surrounding blocks is one of the largest development sites in the capital. In June the Malaysian-backed developers announced a drastic cut in the number of affordable homes in the scheme, blaming the fall in the value of the pound and technical issues over the conversion.
