Secret Sculpture

Artist: Hayley Newman
Location: Rochford Reservoir, Rochford

Among other things, Hayley Newman drew inspiration from a piece of local history for her project at Rochford Reservoir - a white post known as 'The Whispering Post' . The story dates back to the early 17th century when the then Lord of the Manor returned home to discover his tenants whispering and plotting against him, after which he insisted that all his tenants meet at the white post at midnight on the Wednesday after Michaelmas to pay homage in the form of a whisper.

In proposing a sculpture that would be designed and fabricated in secret, Newman actively encouraged rumour and supposition about the the nature of the project amongst the residents of Rochford.

Newman worked with teenagers at King Edmund School in Rochford to produce the design to be fabricated in the form of a giant puzzle by John Parker and Jeff Hatt. 1,000 horseshoes were used to weight the 36 individual pieces of the sculpture before they were rowed out on to the water and sunk, to be retrieved a week later by divers from the Rochford based dive school, Dive Odyssea.

With only 32 of the original 36 pieces retrieved from the depths of the reservoir, in a second workshop, participants were taught the ship-building skill of roving to help them reassemble the sculpture with no knowledge of the original concept or design. The sculpture was temporarily sited on the island where it would be undisturbed until the end of the nesting season.