Four Landscapes for Stoke
by Kaye Song
Stoke Town HSHAZ Wow Commission 1 —Located in the windows of 1 Campbell Place, Stoke, ST4 1NH
Kaye Song and Negar Taatizadeh worked with first and second year architecture students at Staffordshire University to develop ideas for the design. Some of their work features directly in the fourth panel, as a 3-D scan of clay based workshop creating the future landscape of Stoke.
ZOOM IN ON THE IMAGES ABOVE TO SEE THE DIFFERENT ELEMENTS INCLUDED
Four Landscapes for Stoke - Kaye Song
Artist Kaye Song was commissioned to design an original piece of artwork for the windows at 1 Campbell Place. Formally a bank the site is now the Stoke home of Carse and Waterman Productions. As well as reflecting on the heritage and present narratives of Stoke, the fourth panel explores the potential future of the area. It includes 3-D scan of future landscapes made by Staffordshire University Architecture students.
Kaye explains some of the thinking and research behind the artwork, ‘Four Landscapes for Stoke’ tells a four-part story of our relationship to our surroundings and explores how landscape plays a role in the making of Stoke Town.
The first panel depicts the wider, deeper history of Stoke. Situated on the edge of the moorlands and Peak District, this region stood on heavy clay and rugged land that was not suitable for agriculture. Residents instead turned to ceramics - kilns unearthed here evidence potting that dates back to Roman times, with roads connecting Stoke to Chester and Derby. Stoke was also part of the Kingdom of Mercia and an important place of worship as well as a thoroughfare for pilgrimages. Today, this is marked by the Two Saints Way, a long-distance route between the shrines of St Werburgh and St Chad, with Stoke Minster marking the midpoint.
The second panel focuses on the more recent, industrial history of Stoke, much of which forms the heritage of Stoke-on-Trent as we know it today. The exploitation of the land on which the city stood was crucial to it becoming an industrial powerhouse - access to coal, clay and watercourses made the production and transport of ceramics an operation that propelled the city to international prominence. During this period, the cultivation of oats came to dominate its farmland - straw was used as fire for the kiln, and grain milled to form flour for a new fast food for the Potteries workers, which wrapped leftovers with a delicious, filling oatcake.
The third panel hones in on the present and local Stoke Town of shops, houses, streets and warehouses. The urban environment is shown as part of the natural features that surround the town. The River Trent punctures through the hill at Harecastle Tunnel, flowing alongside Stoke in concreted channels; fragments of the town’s architecture are collaged together to form a conglomeration of brick, tiles and stone sitting atop substrates of soil, clay and pottery fragments.
The fourth panel speculates on what the Stoke landscape holds in the future. There is great work being done by organisations such as Wilder Stoke Wilder Newcastle to connect local people with the land around them. They remind us that even our backyards form part of a collective landscape - creating log piles, installing bat boxes, bird feeders and ponds and letting our grass grow long all help to contribute towards creating green corridors and reinstating biodiversity into our cities. With everybody working together for sustainable advancements in how we farm, build and distribute, Stoke Town is allowing its residents to use its land in ways that are ever-greener and ever-smarter.
In the background of the fourth panel lies a landscape still in the process of becoming. Made with Staffordshire University Architecture students, this 3D digital mesh was taken directly from a collaborative clay model of the Stoke-on-Trent landscape. Together, they imagined a new terrain full of bridges, clean energy infrastructure integrated into new construction, plentiful housing and safer thoroughfares for wildlife and people. In the centre we see people starting to lay bricks for the future Stoke with robotic technology, a nod to the buildings current use as a digital creative space and incubator for next generations technological innovation.
Altogether, the panels portray landscape as a dynamic and colourful culmination of people, material and spaces. Stoke Town has a hugely multi-layered history and deep ties to its land that also forms part of a larger human story. How we use our land plays a far-reaching role in shaping the environment around us, and our environment in turn is what shapes our practices and culture: landscape is all around us and is who we are. ‘Four Landscapes for Stoke’ is a testament to this and encourages us all to take care of our surroundings, to value the stories that are embedded in our land and to find power in using our tools to rework it for a better future.
List of elements to be found in each panel of Four Landscapes for Stoke by Kaye Song
Have you spotted the other 3 WOW commissions around the town?
Find out more by visiting the main project page by clicking the button below
Each commission was curated by B arts and funded by Historic England and Stoke-On-Trent City Council as part of the Stoke Town High Stoke Heritage Action Zone Programme (the artworks were designed and installed between November 2022 and March 2024)
