The Rock Room Slade Takeover 2016

For the past three years MA Sculpture students from UCL Slade School of Fine Art have been involved in an experiment creating work influenced by the Rock Room, the Geology Collections and the Earth Science Department at UCL.

Once a year students install art works that include sculpture, painting and various mixed media (including cheese, fish and other foodstuffs) into the Rock Room.

This year marks the fourth instalment of the project, and the last in the Rock Room's current home. The theme of the 2016 Rock Room Slade Takeover was 'Poison' which came about after another pop-up event in the rock room, with UCL Engineers without Borders. This event related to their project which aims at providing safe drinking water to a rural community in Mexico whose drinking water was contaminated with fluoride and arsenic. The UCL Slade students built on some of the work covered in that event.

There were some standout pieces created during the takeover, which included a copy of a jadeite Neolithic axe head found in Somerset, which was made of ice and charcoal and designed to melt over the course of the day. Another piece was a homemade geode which was placed inside one of the cases along with 'real' specimens.

Every year the resultant one day pop-up event has been totally different from the last, you can read about last year's event.

Nick Booth, UCL Public and Cultural Engagement