Textus - latin [a web; texture, structure]; of speech or writing, [connection].
- a public light artwork for the lifting tower, Wellington Place, Leeds, in celebration of the 800th year of the signing of the Leeds Charter. In collaboration with digital artist Paul Emery and Arup in Partnership with MEPC Ltd. textus can be seen from Friday 12th October - 26th October from dusk until midnight on Wellington Place (entrance at the corner of Wellington Place and Northern Street, LS1).

'TEXTUS is an extension of my interest as a sculptor in civic inscription, moving it from the static and permanent into a form that is fluid and temporary. Using the Lifting Tower as a cypher of Leeds' industrial past, the artwork seeks to give status to the structure, to allow it once again to inhabit the space through the exploration of its distinctive character and bring it forward as an object for commemoration.'

The MEPC Lifting Tower, now an anachronous structure stood alone amongst new development, once formed part of Wellington Street Station. It was used to load & unload trains that passed its top storey on a viaduct which now only exists in nearby, ivy covered fragments. It is surrounded by the new developments of West End Leeds and imagined future buildings such as Lumiere Tower, which will soon rise beside it. Thus the Lifting Tower looks both forward & back, back to the transport hub of which it was once a part, which made the Leeds the crucible of the Industrial Revolution & the modern world that it was, and forward to the reborn, regenerated area of the City that West End Leeds is becoming.

Paul Emery
Night Light
Preparatory Work
Lumen