Seafood Disco is a long, gently curving sixty-seater picnic bench beside the River Thames in the shape of a smile. At twenty-seven metres in length, it is the longest picnic table in London. The work began in the studio with a bag of coconuts and the old Tommy Cooper joke, ‘I went to a seafood disco – and pulled a muscle.’ The coconuts led to a playful form built from the fundamental geometries of the cone, cylinder, and slab, with the recurring funfair motif of the hemispherical half coconut propping up stools and popping up through tabletops. Cooper’s joke connects the river and the pearlescent mussel shells set within the unique terrazzo surface of the table and bench surfaces, as well as giving the table its joyful smile.

The work also includes four permanently installed barbecues that can be used by anyone, creating a green space for people to gather, cook, and eat together, while enjoying views of the river up past the Emirates Air Line cable car and down to the Thames Barrier. Jemima Burrill, who commissioned the work, explained why she was drawn to the Morisons’ practice. ‘They marry an aesthetic gorgeousness with an essential function: a place to eat. They make designs for people. The key thing about this picnic bench is that it an exceptional, extraordinary design but something that people can enjoy. It will bring people to the area and make them smile, this giant smile formed out of concrete, but it is also totally practical. People can come on their own or with friends and sit and eat or watch the sun set in a wonderful place that has been created by a beautifully designed bit of concrete.’

For Ivan Morison, it is the attention to the detail of the materials that elevates the work. ‘We could have made the same object with the same form as you approach it, but it is when you sit down and use it, and you notice the details, and feel the different textures, and see the light hit the surfaces, that is when the experience is amplified. You know that every detail has been thought about. Sometimes those details are more important and powerful than the big-picture stuff.’


       



‘The Morisons are two people who can create sculpture in an innovative and magical way.
This work perches perfectly in its environment, as if it had always been there, considered and thoughtful. Their sixty-seater table Seafood Disco with its barbecues for all to use, designed to sit in a perfect spot on Greenwich Peninsula, carves out a curve so locals can sit and watch Thames life. This useable sculpture makes a moment for people to talk to each other and interact, while enjoying the glimmering water rushing to the Thames Barrier. Lest we forget their humour around the making of a work, which colours an idea and brings awe and gladness to any project. Plus their attention to materiality: the table’s surface glimmering with glass and shells, a surface so delicious, created for people’s enjoyment. Heather and Ivan imagine other possibilities, and I am glad.’

Jemima Burrill, cultural consultant and curator, NOW Gallery

Photographers’ credits       


Installed work_Circe Hamilton / Installed work and event_Charles Emerson / Fabricaction_ Ivan Morison