We were commissioned by ROAR (Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance) to create a piece of public art that would be of interest to children under the age of 8, to reside on the Rec in the village of Thurcroft. We worked with children from three local schools and young people from the youth club to explore and develop ideas for the work. Whilst working with young people of Thurcroft the concept of a friendly, nature loving troll emerged.
We love narrative and in particular the picture book form, so we developed the idea of creating a myth for Thurcroft based around Thor, his adventures, his origins and his caring nature. We thought it would be lovely for local families to share the story of Thor whilst picnicking on the Rec alongside Thor himself……
We knew we needed to make something robust and durable so the decision was made to create the troll in steel and give him a a stack of stone pillows. Our four meter troll lies resting by trees in the Rec, covered in colourful, nature inspired hand-painted doodles.