Sculpture in the City: The summer art exhibition transforming the City of London

Sally Williams went along to see the artwork.

A new art exhibition is transforming spaces in the capital into an open-air gallery.

Sculpture in the City happens annually and this year its bringing 17 new artworks to commuters and visitors.

The work by 15 artists, include designer and Hublot Design Prize winner Samuel Ross' Caucus, a bright-yellow work that treads the line between sculpture and furniture, allowing passers-by to take a seat.

One of the artists, Clare Burnett made Secret Sentinels, a piece inspired by the city's surveillance.

"These are like friendly spies that are looking back at the cameras that are all around them," she said.

"London has more than any other city in the world I wanted to put some colour in the city and talk to all the cameras...I wanted them to be like Daleks, like people, that had character and were a group or family of sculptures that related to eachother and the space around them."

Stella Ioannau is the artistic director of the exhibition, which has brought 162 pieces of art around the insurance district over its 13 years in existence.

"It's a project that brings contemporary sculpture and contemporary art into this urban environment to animate it and give people a different point of daily interest in their daily commute, a different way to discover the city of London and its nooks and its crannies," said Ms Ioannau.

One piece that stands out is Everything Before, Everything After by Seph Li - a piece of work that's shown on a giant LED screen on the ceiling.

Ms Ioannau continued: "It's an amazing artwork which is taking over this ceiling mounted LED screen...it's an immense scale, so it really brings the artwork to life, and takes over the space encouraging everyone who takes past to take a meditative moment...we all need to take a beat in our life."

Another piece on the trail is kissing gate by Maya Rose Edwards - bringing a rural kissing gate into the urban landscape.

"I really enamoured with them as objects, these pieces of spacial punctuation...they can interrupt spaces and change journeys," said Maya.

"[It's] a really alien object in a a super alien landscape, and it will disrupt people's journeys, especially here as they're moving in a proper inner city, really urban environment, moving back and forth really quickly all the time."

The artworks can be seen from Liverpool Street, across to Aldgate and down to Fenchurch Street. They'll be there until Spring 2025.

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