Five Piece Halls
Triptych
1993
Rohacell, card, wood, wood products/ MDF, glass, cellulose lacquer, paint.
79 cm x 280 cm x 15 cm (overall).
The Piece Halls were 18th-century Yorkshire cloth markets built in Halifax, Leeds, Wakefield, Huddersfield, and Bradford that were intended to celebrate and modernise the pre-industrial economy of the North, by applying the scientific, political, and philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment to regional trade. Today, the only surviving Piece Hall is the Grade 1-listed Halifax Piece Hall (Right hand panel) which hosts craft markets, cafes and cultural events. Today it is the most significant secular building in Yorkshire and still fulfilling an important civic and commercial role, albeit not quite as originally envisaged by those who built it.
Installation views: ‘Ideas of Utopia’ Charleston, West Sussex, UK. 2023