Behind the Scenes at the foundry with our photographer Colin Davison…

‘Very dusty and quite dangerous!’ were the first words Colin used to describe his experience of the foundry where two new Antony Gormley pieces are being made for Harewood…

The foundry process is only one part of the production, done one at a time, the piece is prepared ready at the studio, made from polystyrene blocks carefully and precisely cut and assembled to plan, then sprayed with a ceramic coating to create a shell of sorts around the polystyrene.

The piece is then buried in hard-packed sand, this is called ‘ramming’. A day or two later, ‘blowback’ sparks fly as the hot iron is ‘poured’, the sand acts as a barrier to contain the hot metal once the polystyrene has burned away… and then it is all left to cool completely…

A couple of days later the piece must be ‘knocked out’ and excavated from 2 tons of sand, it’s a strange and gruesome sight, black with ash and rough around the edges… the piece is then ready to go to the studio to be ‘fettled’, essentially cleaned up ready for oxidising and then on to Harewood ready for the exhibition!

A specially commissioned film documenting the process of the two pieces being made will be shown alongside the exhibition at Harewood, including an exclusive interview with Antony Gormley himself… don’t miss the show this summer!

Find out more about the exhibition and visiting Harewood on our website here… www.harewood.org/gormley