Giant Inspiration Rests in Sheffield

Updated: May 26

An Industrial Sized Exhibition

On a typical cold, wet and windy day up North, I ventured across to the city of Sheffield on the hunt for huge inspiration.

This search took me to a quiet street with a queue of people tailing around a building and into the distance.

Three hours shivered by, inching closer and closer to the door of a former cutlery works. Every step encouraged the excitement and anticipation levels of the crowd to creep up.

In small groups we were permitted access into the factory. First to a court yard and then to the entrance of the main exhibition down a long and gloomy disused corridor.

Finally, we caught sight of the fully immersive exhibition that was The Mausoleum of the Giants. Created by Sheffield-born artist, Phlegm alongside a team of volunteers.

Typically known for his large scale mural paintings covering huge industrial buildings, this exhibition had something else to offer and it was created just for Sheffield.

The industrial sized beasts were squeezed into the former factory, their final resting place becoming one of discomfort and lacking in luxury. As visitors were permitted in small groups, the still and quiet atmosphere was magnified by the sad narrative.

A large scale character covered in black and white patterns lies on its left side in the foetal position — Viewers were dwarfed by the huge creations

A large scale character covered in black and white patterns is sitting on the floor holding it's knees

What I Learnt From An Afternoon with the Giants

Commercial Goals vs Portfolio Goals

At the time of exploring this exhibition, I was working for the Manchester Metropolitan University, my role was to support students, staff and alumni in producing artworks for sale in a retail unit. On reflection, I may have gotten carried away with this idea and harnessed too much of my energy making work to sell. I lost sight of the bigger picture for a little while and created goals that were driven by products and not by my portfolio. After becoming aware of this distraction, I've been able to set myself more constructive goals, to begin to think about the work I would produce for an exhibition setting and how that could take shape.

Aim Big!

Making big work is fun, it pushes boundaries and pushes you to your limit in some cases, it creates problems of it's own, it can take on a life of its own. But it's so worth it to see your work in it's exhibition space, taking up the room it deserves. I noticed recently that I have been put off from making big work because I have a small home studio, maybe I need to stretch out of this space and make big work a priority again.

Get Help & Connect

To produce such an incredible exhibition like The Mausoleum of the Giants, a huge team was arranged to help to create the whole experience - and then 85 volunteers were drafted in to staff the event! It can become very easy for us creatives to want to take control and do all of the jobs to achieve our goal.

Sometimes you need a team to back you up and I think it's a great thing to ask for help. This is another one of my goals that I'm working towards. I'm not saying draft in an army of volunteers for a monster project but even just starting small with outsourcing jobs like video editing, photography, copywriting etc. leave it to those who can do a great job of it and you can free up some time for creating.