Inspired by history, made for the future

Four hand-made bronze animal 'Talismans' have been included in the Britain’s First Human exhibition at Torquay Museum which is now open.  

Inspired by the ancient animals found in Kent's Cavern, the figures have been created by two young local fathers as part of a project exploring how making can encourage creative dialogue and how contemporary objects can hold a personal or collective meaning.

The 'Talismans' have been made as part of the 'Museum of Now' project, run by Encounters Arts in partnership with Torquay Museum and funded by the Arts Council.  Encounters Arts have been working with hundreds of local residents to create objects and artefacts that have meaning for them or their communities. Lead Artist with Encounters Arts Shelley Castle has used items in the Museum collections as starting points for a wide variety of 'makes' ranging from collective public creations to individual creations such as the bronze cave animal figures now on show.

To start the process, Bobby Chancellor and Lewis Chamberlain-Drury were given a rare private viewing of three enigmatic iron-age animal figures held by Torquay Museum called the Milber Figures.  Found in a ditch near Newton Abbot, almost nothing is known about the makers or even why they were made.  

The father’s then moulded a Cave Bear, Woolly Rhino, Wolf and Woolly Mammoth out of local beeswax. Having written key words onto minute pieces of paper, these words were placed, as with a fortune cookie, into the heart of the wax figure. With the help of local artists Sian Lewis and Andrew Lacey, the wax figures were then ‘lost’ as the bronze (recycled from a Devon boat propellor) was poured into the mould, using an ancient form of casting our ancestors would recognise called the ‘Lost Wax Method’.

Of each pair, one ‘Talisman’ will remain with the father, the other will be handed to their son, all containing the ashes of the words which described what qualities the father's hope to encourage in themselves and what they hope their son's will inherit.  

Lead Artist with Encounters Arts Shelley Castle: “This is a great example of what we can do when we are inspired to make. This project connects us as humans to each other; not only now but to our ancestors in the past; as well as encouraging the ageless act of making to express ourselves.”

Britain's First Humans is on at Torquay Museum until 12th December. For more information about Museum of Now see www.encounters-arts.org.uk

For more information visit http://www.encounters-arts.org.uk/