Shezad Dawood’s St Pancras Wires commission ‘HMS Alice Liddell’ unveiled at St Pancras International station, London on 29 September. Photography - Sam Lane. Courtesy of the artist

Shezad Dawood’s St Pancras Wires commission ‘HMS Alice Liddell’ unveiled at St Pancras International station, London on 29 September. Photography - Sam Lane. Courtesy of the artist

Factum Arte has been working with artist Shezad Dawood on a public art commission for St Pancras International station in London. His largest sculpture to date, HMS Alice Liddell was unveiled on September 29th. 

HMS Alice Liddell is a 5m-wide sculpture of an elaborate, Gothic revival-inspired spaceship that plays around the station's 19th-century design, blending it with a futuristic and steampunk fiction aesthetic. The initial concept was modelled by Factum Arte's 3D sculptor Irene Gaumé working closely with Shezad to create a seemingly impossible form. Once complete the design was 3D printed (or CNC-milled in polyurethane according to the level of detail required) before being assembled in Madrid and shipped to London suspended within a frame. 

The tri-chromatic paint (dark green, magenta and gold), applied over a coat of black primer, transforms the visual effect of light and colour over the intricate surface, enhancing the sculpture's details and changing its appearance as the viewer moves.

I hope this project, with its meeting of past and future, allows us all to imagine alternative pathways, and how we might collectively work together to travel in new directions.
- Shezad Dawood on The Art Newspaper

© Irene Gaumé for Factum Arte

Various sections assembled and retouched © Oak Taylor-Smith for Factum Arte

Angel Jorquera working on the surface of one of the larger 3D prints © Oak Taylor-Smith for Factum Arte

Mari Carmen Pascual refining the details of a CNC-milled section © Oak Taylor-Smith for Factum Arte

The final sculpture in Factum's workshop © Oak Taylor-Smith for Factum Arte

The final sculpture in Factum's workshop © Oak Taylor-Smith for Factum Arte

The final sculpture in Factum's workshop © Oak Taylor-Smith for Factum Arte

The final sculpture in Factum's workshop © Oak Taylor-Smith for Factum Arte