Newly unveiled artwork becomes the third public sculpture depicting a Black woman in the UK

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Zoe Paskett5 August 2020

A brand new artwork unveiled today has brought the grand total of sculptures depicting Black women in the UK up to three.

Reaching Out has been created by artist Thomas J Price, and shows a young anonymous woman on her phone.

Standing at 9ft tall, the sculpture looks out over Three Mills Green in the Lee Valley Regional Park near Stratford, and was commissioned to celebrate the fifth anniversary of outdoor art trail, The Line, which stretches across east London.

Price said this work is his first individual full figure representation of a woman, and about “balancing experiences of isolation and connectedness, whilst acknowledging the different ways in which technology mediates our lives.”

He created the woman in a casual but engaged pose to counter those of large historical sculptures of white men, and bring out the value of “the everyday”.

Price’s work joins monumental structures such as Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud in Greenwich Peninsula and Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit. He originally contributed a sculpture to The Line when it launched in 2015, which director Megan Piper said was “a highlight of our programme for local communities”.

Speaking on Reaching Out, Piper said: “The lack of diversity in the public realm is under long-overdue scrutiny and this installation – as a portrait of a contemporary Black woman, rather than a sculpture depicting a historically celebrated (white male) figure – feels particularly pertinent.”

Reaching Out will be accompanied by learning resources and workshops with local schools exploring the themes Price addresses in the work.

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