Artwork Information

Zac Langdon-Pole’s sculptural works combine a range of eclectic materials – such as these ancient arrowheads, typewriters and a specimen cabinet – to create a contemporary equivalent of surrealist sculpture. As well as sparking our curiosity in these extraordinary material conjunctions, Langdon-Pole is interested in what they reveal about our human histories. Taking his cue from the material collections developed at the height of colonialism and Western imperialism, he shows how objects, once removed from their deeply cultural embedded histories, are made strange, ripe for re-imagining. For Langdon-Pole, these new sculptures engage a ‘poetry of looking’, which may help us to understand the disjunctions of empire.

– Natasha Conland, Senior Curator, Global Contemporary Art, 2023