{"id":3064,"date":"2011-01-10T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=3064"},"modified":"2014-04-17T12:04:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T11:04:23","slug":"waiting-passenger-sculptures-brixton-railway-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/waiting-passenger-sculptures-brixton-railway-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting passenger sculptures, Brixton railway station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/human-statues-brixton-railway-station-02.jpg\" alt=\"Human statues, Brixton railway station platform\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Condemned to an eternity of waiting for trains that they can never board are these life-size\u00a0bronze sculptures of three passengers on Brixton railway station, south London.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The sculptures by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forestofdean-sculpture.org.uk\/artists\/sculptors\/kevin-atherton\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Atherton<\/a> (b.1959) were made of three\u00a0volunteers who regularly used the station (Peter Lloyd, Joy Battick and Karin Heistermann), and were unveiled on 30th June 1986 by Sir Hugh Casson\u00a0as part of a \u00a31m renovation of the overground station.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/human-statues-brixton-railway-station-01.jpg\" alt=\"Human statues, Brixton railway station platform\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Collectively named &#8220;Platform Pieces&#8221; and the result of a joint venture between British Rail and Lambeth Council,\u00a0it&#8217;s been suggested that they were the first sculptures made of black British people.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the\u00a0sculptures\u00a0face each other across the platforms in public use, while a third stands rather\u00a0forlornly\u00a0on the abandoned Catford platform, hidden to\u00a0passengers\u00a0by an\u00a0oversized\u00a0metal fence (you can just see it behind the female sculpture in the top photo).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/human-statues-brixton-railway-station-03.jpg\" alt=\"Human statues, Brixton railway station platform\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The sculptures have suffered all sorts of\u00a0comedy\u00a0additions over the years &#8211; I&#8217;ve seen them draped in hats, clothes and traffic cones, made up with lipstick and eye shadow and all manner of other indignities.<\/p>\n<p>The gentleman on the London platform is currently\u00a0sporting\u00a0a rather dashing white moustache.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/human-statues-brixton-railway-station-04.jpg\" alt=\"Human statues, Brixton railway station platform\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Businessman\u00a0and sculpture. Feb 2003 view.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/brixton\/photos\/images\/brixton-snow-dec-2010-20.jpg\" alt=\"Photos of central Brixton covered in snow, south London 18th December, 2010\" width=\"580\" height=\"385\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/brixton\/photos\/brixton-snow-scenes-december-2010.html\">Snowy scene on Brixton station<\/a> (Dec 2010)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/human-statues-brixton-railway-station-05.jpg\" alt=\"Human statues, Brixton railway station platform\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/brixton\/photos\/brixton-snow-at-night.html\" target=\"_blank\">Frozen statue, Feb 2009<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/human-statues-brixton-railway-station-06.jpg\" alt=\"Human statues, Brixton railway station platform\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a photo taken shortly after the sculptures were installed in 1987.<br \/>\n[\u00a9<a href=\"http:\/\/landmark.lambeth.gov.uk\" target=\"_blank\"> Lambeth Landmark<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.net\/vbulletin\/threads\/341243-Waiting-passenger-sculptures-Brixton-railway-station\" target=\"_blank\">Discuss the\u00a0sculptures\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/brixton\/\" target=\"_blank\">More Brixton features here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Condemned to an eternity of waiting for trains that they can never board are these life-size\u00a0bronze sculptures of three passengers on Brixton railway station, south London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,20,17,193,90],"tags":[34,1191],"class_list":["post-3064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brixton","category-cardiff","category-photos","category-places","category-railways","tag-art","tag-brixton"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/human-statues-brixton-railway-station-02.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-Nq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3064"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14379,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064\/revisions\/14379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}