Plan
This artwork featured in BorderLands (2026).
In this sculpture Mark Haughton uses the fact that most people are remarkably comfortable in translating the 2 dimensional pictorial information on a map to the vastness of a 3 dimensional landscape, and vice versa, which constitutes an extreme form of abstraction.
Transmuting the map into another medium removes all legible information, so the map now becomes a pure object. With only the form remaining, it is no longer a tool. The familiar now feels unfamiliar as it hovers between figuration and abstraction.
The piece is primarily a monument to the futility of naming and claiming landmasses in the face of geological time and the oneness of land and sea. Given recent world political events, and global climatic concerns, the piece retains and extends its significance in an ever-changing geopolitical landscape.
Image: Mark Houghton, Plan, Bronze. Installation view, BorderLands, Hay Castle, 2026. Image courtesy of Meadow Arts. Photographer, Finn Beales.
About the artist
Mark Houghton
BorderLands exhibiting artist (15 May – 31 August 2026) and Hereford Sculpture Trail (2024).
In this sculpture Mark Haughton uses the fact that most people are remarkably comfortable in translating the 2 dimensional pictorial information on a map to the vastness of a 3 dimensional landscape, and vice versa, which constitutes an extreme form of abstraction.
Transmuting the map into another medium removes all legible information, so the map now becomes a pure object. With only the form remaining, it is no longer a tool. The familiar now feels unfamiliar as it hovers between figuration and abstraction.
The piece is primarily a monument to the futility of naming and claiming landmasses in the face of geological time and the oneness of land and sea. Given recent world political events, and global climatic concerns, the piece retains and extends its significance in an ever-changing geopolitical landscape.