After much excited anticipation, Aberdeen’s Friends of ANCHOR charity has unveiled twenty anchor sculptures which will be placed around the city and shire, and as far afield as Moray, Orkney and Shetland, which all fall within Aberdeen Royal Infirmary’s ANCHOR Unit catchment area.
The sculptures are part of the charity’s Dream Big Campaign ’20for20’ - a major anniversary fundraising project which celebrates 20 years of cancer support, haematology care and treatment for patients throughout the North-east of Scotland. The campaign embraces a working partnership with local artists and keen creatives throughout the North-east with every going directly to the charity.
John Lawrie Group is proud to be sponsoring one of the stunning sculptures called the ‘Big Hero 20’ which has been designed by the pupils of Ferryhill Primary School along with local mixed media artist, Fiona Chance.
John Lawrie Group Operations Director, Dave Weston, was delighted to see the collection before they go on public display. He says the company is honoured to be part of this milestone event; “For the past twenty years, the John Lawrie Group has admired and respected the incredible work undertaken by Friends of ANCHOR and we were very keen to show our support for the 20for20 anniversary campaign.
“The majority of families in the north east have benefitted from the Friends of ANCHOR’s fundraising efforts in some way over these last two decades and therefore the John Lawrie Group had no hesitation about getting involved and sponsoring one of these magnificent anchors.”
Artist Fiona, originally from Dublin and now living in Aberdeen, has been involved in various public projects including the Wild Dolphins, Coast Arts Festival, Oor Wullie Bucket Trail and various murals.
For the ‘20for20’ campaign, Fiona worked with the school children to help translate their design vision into a reality. Pupils from two classes created superhero masks which reflect all types of heroes and link to the overall campaign theme of ‘dreaming big’ The Big Hero 20 is a nod to the movie, Big Hero 6.
A team of structural engineers and designers collaborated on the design and creation of the five-foot-tall advanced composite structures to produce stunning, structurally sound and safe anchors. The charity then joined up with local artist Mary Butterworth to encourage established and budding artists to get involved with the landmark creative project.
With 20 large anchors representing 20 years of support to North-east cancer and haematology patients, each sculpture provided a blank canvas to participating artists as well as a unique opportunity to inspire and create an enduring design to mark the charity’s special anniversary year.
The £1m campaign seeks to attract and recruit a world-class cancer research team to the North-east. This is a huge investment that will ultimately see clinical trials and care excel for cancer patients in the region.”
The anchors will be on location from the 1st July until the end of October throughout the region and as far afield as Elgin, Shetland and Orkney.
Photo credits: Colin Rennie (Aberdeen Journals) and Michal Wachucik, Abermedia
