Atlantic Drift Public Art Sculpture

Background

The Artist, Locky Morris, proposed as part of the Atlantic Drift project to salvage huge timber piles from the Old American Jetty at Lisahally along the River Foyle. With recent developments in the city and rapidly changing landscapes, little remained of the old wooden docks and quays - rich material which gave clues to our history. Those timber piles were transformed into something new but still showing the marks and effects of a lifetime in the river, like an etched map of the past. The tidal markings could read as emblematic of the city’s fascinating history as a port that has seen many waves of emigration and trade – the literal “ebb and flow”, memories and traces of people and goods that have passed through the city.

Grouped together and rising to a height of 10.4 metres, the piles suggest skyscrapers of stepping-stones and form a kind of totem – maybe to the aspiration of emigrants as they left. These large upward soaring pieces, imbued with reference to marine architecture, exploit the sheer physical power and beauty of the wood. Like modernist architect’s experiments in the 1920s and 1930s with new urban forms – iconic “cathedrals” to industry whose decorated surfaces cloaked a more mechanical heart – the neat columns of the Atlantic Drift belies a complex rhythm of space and form. A harmonious union of mass and dynamism, the artwork exudes both energy and stillness.

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