Project: BEAM
Client: Greenpeace
May – June 2019
Glastonbury Festival
In 2019 Madam Two Saws created BEAM an art installation at Glastonbury Festival for the artist Wolfgang Buttress via Greenpeace. This piece will stay in situ until 2024.
Madam Two Saws oversaw a team of 10 arborists over a 3 month period to create the 30m diameter woodland dome pavilion made from over 7000 locally sourced and unprocessed Sitka Spruce posts. Wolfgang Buttress is renowned for his multi award winning Hive sculpture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
BEAM highlights and expresses the plight of the honey bee and the essential role bees play in pollinating 30% of the food that we eat. The internal space compromised of 6 screens with content curated by Squint/Opera and Wolfgang to create 360-degree projections that fill the inside of the structure.
“Hugo (Madam Two Saws) worked with me on a sculptural installation called BEAM for Greenpeace at Glastonbury 2019. He was a pleasure to work with, well organised, great carpentry skills as well as a thinker and a doer. I am very much looking forward to working with him on future projects”
Wolfgang Buttress
Cambo Greenpeace Action: Boris Johnson Sculpture
Client: Greenpeace
November 2019
London, Downing Street
I was commissioned by Greenpeace UK to build a ‘lockonable’ sculpture of Boris Johnson for a protest against CAMBO, a prospective oil and gas field in the North Atlantic, 125 kilometres north west of the Shetland Islands. This project contradicts Britain’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050. The protest took place out side of Downing Street and influenced Shell’s decision to pull funding for the project. Ironically the sculpture was taken to police HQ and is now used to train police officers to deal with protesters who have locked themselves on to something!
Barclays Bank
Client: Greenpeace
July 2018
Canary Wharf, London
In 2018 Madam Two Saws designed and created five giant oil drops for our client Greenpeace. These where then rigged at Barclays Bank HQ, Canary Wharf London to highlight the banks Investment in the funding of the controversial Canadian oil pipeline that Greenpeace say is devastating the environment.
In addition to this Madam Two Saws devised the installation method, wrote the training manual and supplied rigging for the Greenpeace volunteers.
“There are many good things about working with Madam Two Saws, which is always an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Madam Two Saws brings a wealth of experience of making and delivering artistic projects that are also required to solve difficult logistical or material challenges. They are very easy to work with, excellent at running a team and realistic on costs and time in planning stages. The best thing about working with Madam Two Saws is that they can be relied upon to not only deliver a job to brief and on time/ budget, but it will always have the added value of their personality woven within it”.
Luke Cordingley, Greenpeace
Syringe Sun
Client: Paul Insect
October 2010
Tunnel 228, Waterloo, London
In 2010 the ‘Hell's Half Acre’ art show saw the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Waterloo station converted into a large-scale evocation of Dante’s Inferno. Visitors explored a unique interpretation of the nine circles of hell through the vision of artists curated by Steve Lazarides Banksy’s former gallerist.
Under the instruction of artist Paul Insect, Madam Two Saws created ‘Syringe Sun’ a one-metre rotating diameter sphere covered in 2,800 surgical syringes filled with clear-cast resin. This piece then went on to tour.
Syringe Sun was a technically highly challenging job all the way through from construction, to transportation, installation, removal and storage.
Moving Units
I was commissioned by Moving Units to make 6 Concrete moulds to form skateable objects which are located at London’s iconic skate spot at the Southbank.
I was flown out to Goa, India to build a skate bowl for SK8 Goa I worked with a great crew of locals in sub-tropical conditions which made the act of digging a big hole a whole lot harder.
