Artist puts steel into empty homes issue

Saddened by the sight of so many ‘tinned up’ houses on her parents’ Liverpool street, art student Jayne Lawless used some of the metal sheets to create a poignant sculpture to highlight the issue of empty houses and declining communities.

Lawless, who is studying for a Masters in Fine Art at Bath Spa University, has called the work “L5 6QW” – the postcode of her house in Granton Road, Anfield, where her parents live.

“Surrounded by this metal I was sad about the situation of moving people out of homes that were structurally sound and running down the area so much that people were made to feel they had no choice but to leave,” she said.

The artwork features eight 60cm sq steel boxes welded to eight scaffold poles. The boxes were fashioned from the steel screens used to board up the homes. These were donated to the artist by SitexOrbis, the company tasked to secure the empty properties.

The artwork has been installed on private land in Somerset, where it is scheduled for viewings from 27 September to 2 October.

“The box represents a home with the pole literally piercing through the heart and pushing them up far from the land, leaving them in a precarious position,” Lawless added. “I like the idea of the work being placed in a rural setting so it feels isolated, out on its own and also creates a strong contrast of an urban issue/material being placed somewhere alien.”