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Ten years ago, when Claire Mander was studying for an art history MA at the Courtauld Institute in London, she stumbled upon the neglected roof terrace of nearby Temple underground station. She found herself strangely drawn to the overgrown expanse with its stunning views of the Thames and the London Eye.
“It was dirty, abandoned and a magnet for antisocial behaviour,” recalls Mander, now director and curator of theColab, an arts charity and incubator specialising in large-scale outdoor sculptures. She researched the history of the abandoned space, which was built as part of the Victoria Embankment in 1870. Before that, the ground beneath the site housed a 17th-century sculpture garden created by the Countess of Arundel.
“It inspired me to visualise how the roof terrace could become a really special women’s sculpture garden,” says Mander. “The ‘hidden in plain sight’ nature of the location felt to me like the perfect place to redress some of the gender disparity that we see in public artworks.”
A survey by Art UK revealed that of almost 1,500 monuments in London, more than a fifth were dedicated to named men and only 4% were dedicated to women, half as many as those that celebrated animals. And of all the public sculptures in London, only 13% were created by women.
Mander kept badgering Westminster council until eventually they gave her the go-ahead. With funding from donations and over £500,000 to date from the council, the Artist’s Garden opened in October 2021. It is the world’s first and only public sculpture garden devoted to the work of female artists. Since then they have attracted 100,000 visitors a year, commissioned 18 major works, and collaborated with 24 different emerging and established artists.
But now, theColab has been informed by Places for London, Transport for London’s property arm, that their licence to occupy the site will not be renewed on 1 October and they must clear the garden.
A Places for London spokesperson said: “The terrace and station roof may now require essential repair and safety works, and the space needs to be cleared for the assessment of the extent of the works required. We are working with Westminster city council and local stakeholders to explore alternative locations nearby for the Artist’s Garden, while also developing future plans for the terrace at Temple.”
Mander disputes this, stating that the repairs relate to upgrading the commercial property below the terrace, and that according to the scope of works, no large-scale overhaul of the roof is mentioned. She believes the space is at risk of being handed over to a private developer. “It’s a prime location with incredible views of the river, ideal for VIP events selling overpriced cocktails. They don’t understand that this is a landmark project. Their perception seems to be that we’re a small, pathetic female-led charity that’s doing some sort of nice little sculptural things. But we are prepared to take this to court if it comes to it.” They have launched a campaign and petition to save the garden.
Alexandra Hodby, head of programmes at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and a trustee of the gardens, points out that such spaces are of vital cultural and economic value, both to artists and to the cities they inhabit. “Look at the High Line in New York. It wasn’t even a public space, then it was made public through art. Artists activated it. Now it’s one of the most visited places in the city.”
Hodby believes that sculpture has a particular power to engage the public in a way that art on gallery walls does not. “There’s an immediacy about it, there’s no separation between the work and the world.” This is true. On the day I visit, London is in the grip of a heatwave. Office workers, builders on an early lunch, bemused tourists, all throng the space. A toddler crawls towards Mexican artist Adeline de Monseignat’s pebbled Croissant, no doubt spying a potential see-saw. In the distance, I spot people posing for selfies beside Alice Wilson’s Savoy, a giant forest of technicolor timbers.
“Obviously, seeing art made by women inspires other women who want to make art themselves. But it goes far beyond that,” says Hodby. “Representation is about being part of a public space and being seen. Visibility allows visitors to see themselves, be it the Artist’s Garden or Yorkshire Sculpture Park where we endeavour to show a broad range of artists including non-binary, queer practice and younger artists.”
Lakwena Maciver created the site’s opening exhibit, a kaleidoscopic mural titled Back in the Air: A Meditation on Higher Ground. It unfurled across the entire 140 sq-metre space. For the British-Ugandan artist, the site holds particular emotional significance. “When I was a teenager, we would get the train up to town and I remember sitting in Embankment Gardens eating Skittles with my sister. I’d be thinking about my future but also feeling that, as a minority, London didn’t belong to me. To be asked to do the mural was very special because I was being invited to contribute something so monumental. It was like, I do belong! It has never occurred to me not to work on a large scale but I had so many positive interactions with visitors at that site, it gave me a lot of confidence.”
Artist Florence Peake created work for the site’s current show Sculpture in Three Acts. “It’s rare these days in London to find a public space that is free and doesn’t have a commercial agenda. It’s a place to reflect, take a breath and be with artworks that may draw you in, and hold space for a state of reflection.”
She believes the garden has provided a much-needed space. “It allows visitors to see that women can make huge monolithic work. Of course we can! It’s just that so often we’re not trusted to be ambitious and do things to scale. Our visions are often rejected and considered naive. This is what I’ve encountered in my 30 years of being an artist anyway. A man comes along and says ‘I want to build a big steel thing sticking 18 metres up in the air’ and he’s hailed as a genius. A woman suggesting the same thing, there are anxious sideways glances.”
At the heart of the garden is the artist’s hut, currently featuring a wraparound photomontage created by feminist artist Linder Sterling. “The Artist’s Garden is situated in Temple, once the province of the Knights Templar,” she says. “It seems that women have to become warriors now and defend our right to take up space there.”
Presiding over the back wall of the montage is a portrait of the Countess of Arundel, reminding us of the lineage of women who have gone before. “On one of the walls of the hut, you can see the phrase ‘She Is Here’, the title of the work, writ large,” adds Sterling. “Now that the site is under threat, She Is Here has become a rallying cry - we’re not going anywhere.”
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