Thomson & Craighead

Here, 2013

Custom Signpost 264 × 82 × 12 cm

London-based artists Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead originally conceived Here in 2011 as a virtual image for The Mini Museum of XXI Century Arts, an online digital media platform. The concept was to mark the distance of the work from itself along a North/South axis. The physical sculpture, fabricated to UK road standards two years later, marks the 24,859 mile distance around the earth and back. The current placement of this sculpture is particularly relevant in its current location on the Greenwich Meridian, which is located at 0 degrees longitude.

Courtesy the artists

Biography

Jon Thomson (b.1969, London) and Alison Craighead (b.1971, Aberdeen) both studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee and have been working together since 1993. Using sound, video, installations and online space, their recent work explores how globalisation and global communication networks are re-shaping the way we perceive the world around us. In particular they have been looking at how the digital world is ever more closely connected to the physical world becoming a geographical layer in our collective sensorium.

As Thomson and Craighead, they have exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Their work features in private and public collections, including the Imperial War Museum, Museum of London, Arts Council Collection and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Jon is Professor of Fine Art at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London and Alison is Reader in Contemporary Art at University of Westminster and Lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University of London. They live and work between London and Ross-shire. 

Images: Vassilis Skopelitis