One Island, Many Visions sculpture exhibition in Dorset

Glass sculptors Colin Reid, Karen Browning and Rebecca Newnham are taking part in the ‘One Island, Many Visions’ event in Portland this autumn.

This is a collaborative project featuring the work of 27 sculptors who have created a variety of work in response to the landscape of the Tout Quarry Sculpture Park and Nature Reserve in Portland, Dorset, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

As well as exhibitions at both the sculpture park and Drill Hall Gallery in Portland (from 6 September to 31 October 2025), there is a symposium on 27 and 28 September, plus community events.

One Island, Many Visions is a partnership between members of the Royal Society of Sculptors and the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust (PSQT). Tout Quarry Sculpture Park launched in 1983, hosting artists’ residencies by established and emerging creators making both temporary and permanent work in response to the labyrinths and gullies created when the 40-acre site was an active quarry.

Continuing this tradition, the One Island, Many Visions artists have spent 18 months on residencies and research in the area gaining inspiration for their creations. The results are both physical artworks and concepts including sound, movement, poetry and performance. Some are site-specific installations, both subtle interventions and more traditional methods of making using casting, carving and assemblage.

Colin Reid’s piece ‘Early Morning Wren’ combines textures cast from the rocks in Tout Quarry with an image derived from a recording of the soundscape in the quarry in the early dawn. The sound is expressed as a spectrogram, etched inside the glass. The piece references both the ancient, enduring quality of the rocks and the fleeting, transient nature of the lives lived there. The piece is a collaboration with sound artist Rob Godman who made the recording on which the spectrogram is based.

Speaking about her installation, Dorset-based Karen Browning said, “I see Portland as a vessel, the extraction of stone removing the core. In my piece, cast from recycled Portland stone dust and lit with a noble gas-filled (helium) blown glass tube, the internal texture is constructed from casts of rocks and fissures from the island. The light from the plasma tube suggests sunset over the sea when viewed from Portland Bill. The core of the vessel glows with this light, this time referencing Portland’s long maritime history.”

Rebecca Newnham’s work considers the quarry as a site of ecological regeneration, focusing on the plants found there at the summer and winter solstices. She reflects on how the quarry was abandoned following the extraction of valuable Portland stone, and that it embodied absence following extraction. Over time, it has become a rich habitat for nature.

She states, “The quarry and the work I have created in response offer a vision of hope and demonstrate healing. My work takes the form of two wall panels and two light wells, each reflecting an experience of place and time. Glass embodies traces of some of the 500 species of plants that we observed mid-winter 2024 and mid-summer 2025. Their names are engraved inside the light wells.

“I am delighted to have spent time with naturalist Bob Ford. I can’t imagine anyone is more knowledgeable about the plants and creatures that are found in Tout Quarry. It has been a pleasure to learn from him, and he is speaking in the symposium too. Do join us if you can.”

Symposium

Tout Quarry displays change naturally through flora and fauna, and weather patterns that gauge what survives and what is in decline. The quarry acts as a barometer for these climate changes. The two-day symposium will raise debate, awareness and engagement with these issues. It focuses on art and nature, with speakers including David Buckland, Founder/Director of the Cape Farewell project on climate change, naturalist Bob Ford, artists Chris Drury and Phoebe Cummings, art historian Gill Hedley, and PSQT Director Hannah Sofaer.

The community events comprise artist-led workshops, demonstrations, performance, a coach trip, and artists-in-conversation spotlights, some with public participation. For more details of these, follow @oneislandmanyvisions on Instagram.

One Island, Many Visions is supported by PSQT, The Arts Society Wessex Area, Bath University, Dorset Dry Stone Walling, Albion Stone, and Russell Sach. Admission is free but donations are welcome.

Venues: Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust (PSQT): Drill Hall Gallery, Easton Street, Portland DT5 1BW (open Thursdays to Sundays 11am-4pm) and Tout Quarry Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve (open all hours).

Full list of participating artists via Royal Society of Sculptors website.

Main image: Detail of Colin Reid’s ‘Early Morning Wren’, which is cast glass with an etched spectrogram inside.