Connections

Connections is a sculpture that from a distance resembles molecules. It highlights our modern day insatiable need for connection through social media likes and friends. Each resin ball represents a person, neon rods connecting them to another and the wider group. It shows how we are all different but all connected. The purpose of the artwork is to start a conversation about meaningful relationships in a playful, non-judgemental way.

If you break everything down it is essentially made of connected molecules. All of nature including us, connected, by invisible interlocking molecules mingling with no hard edges.

Connection explores how we connect to each other and the world around us. The sculpture resembles a molecule, just as the diagrams do that map social media conversations. Each dot (for us a resin ball) represents a person, they connect to another dot or person in the diagram. As the conversation grows the diagram takes on a cellular, bloom appearance. Each resin ball on our structure presents an individual.

Dunbar’s number says we can only maintain relationships with around 150 people, with social media and more ways to connect than ever, we question what connection looks like today. We have collected profile pictures from 150 people to be encased into the resin to illustrate how those groups interact, and how they wish to be represented.

Artists Emma Denby and Gemma Wood have been fabricating artwork installations for events and light festivals for the last three years, we love getting people involved in our projects as much as possible.

This artwork was a co-commission between RHS Bridgewater and Quays Culture and will appear at both locations during RHS Glow and Lightwaves 2022.