Madeleine Pledge

superstructure (public image) by Madeleine Pledge
Marine Parade Gardens
Photo by Thierry Bal
Commissioned by Devonshire Collective
Madeleine Pledge
superstructure (public image)
2023
The work consists of several aluminium and steel structures, made specifically to be fitted around selected palm trees and cordylines on site at Marine Parade Road, Eastbourne.
The aluminium shapes encircling the trunks of the trees are cast from layers of embossed leather, cut to the shape of the re-scaled and stretched eyeholes of knitted balaclavas the artist re-made in 2019, after a 1986 series of works by Rosemarie Trockel. Re-adapted from their previous use in Lenses and Can(n)ons, a Static Cling Vinyl work made with Alice Channer in 2021, here these apertures direct and fix a gaze around the trees, where they are held in place by standardised industrial hardware.
The walled raised bed that forms the plants’ involuntary habitat suggests a public stage, on which the trees become protagonists or subjects; addressed and dressed by the sculptures around them. The metal ‘superstructures’ made for the site are undergirded by the living system of the planting bed both above and below ground, as well as its implicit entanglement with colonial legacies of plant hunting.
Spiked pieces of fallen palm bark collected from the adjacent planting bed have been multiplied in aluminium via lost wax casting and bolted into the structures, as well as the woven fibres of two Trachycarpus fortunei (or windmill palms – named in Latin after Robert Fortune, the plant hunter who smuggled plants from China and Japan to Kew Gardens) ‘weaponizing’ the surface of their trunks.
Chosen initially for its pleated, bark-like texture, the embossed ‘epi’ leather used to form the sand cast aluminum parts of the work has also been used widely by Louis Vuitton in the production of leather goods, bringing the sculptures into close contact with the circuitry of fashion-fronted capital. With parts glamourised in a hard and reflective layer of chrome, the work approaches the political potential of shine and surface within systems of production, circulation, and power.
Commissioned in partnership with Eastbourne ALIVE, in celebration of the Turner Prize 2023.The artwork is installed in Marine Parade Gardens, on the seafront pedestrian pathway. Open 30 September - 22 December 2023.
About Madeleine Pledge
Madeleine Pledge (b. 1993, UK) lives and works in London and graduated with a BA from The Lade School of Fine Arts in 2016. Working with sculpture via replicas and remakes, she often uses the surfaces and structure of fashion and design to approach bodies as subjects and objects within systems of production and power. Her work attempts to find and hold space between the repetitive tyranny of capitalist production and fictions of individualised authorship as well as artistic originality.
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Image © Madeleine Pledge
About Devonshire Collective
Devonshire Collective (DC) is a cultural and community organisation operating across a network of ex-retail sites in the Devonshire West ward, Eastbourne – a vibrant area with a long-standing community.
At their gallery, VOLT, they commission significant first solo exhibitions by emerging and underrepresented artists living in East Sussex and nationally. DC are studio providers to a range of creatives and makers. DC Learn is a learning and engagement programme for families, young people and our communities in Devonshire West ward. The galleries and programmes are free, and open to all.