In November 2018 I was invited to Bhubeneswar, Odisha, India to participate in the IPAS’18 International Public Art Symposium, alongside 18 international and 10 Indian artists.  We were to make new work from recycled scrap metal for a new sculpture park.

Working with a disused Auto-Rickshaw, and steel bar and scrap decorative panels of punched and painted aluminium of the kind found on buses and trucks across India I made a ‘Gobora Poko Auto’ (Auto-Rickshaw Dung Beetle).  I took as my inspiration the lowly dung beetle – a humble but beautiful creature with an amazing sculptural form to its powerful shell and a vital part to play in the natural ecosystem.  Building this around the Auto Rickshaw (movable but with no engine) a humble vehicle with a similarly vital role in the city’s ecosystem, I made a new type of creature with a playful exterior and interior, celebrating the exuberant Odishan love of decoration and pattern, and celebrating both the rich tradition of intricate craft skills and huge collaborative effort to recycle that I saw everywhere I looked in Bhubeneswar.