Gathering Landscapes

Weston Park Museum

53.3815777,-1.4923759

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Introduction

Photo: Victoria Lucas

For 150 years, West­on Park Muse­um has told sto­ries of Sheffield and its peo­ple, from pre­his­to­ry to present day through exhi­bi­tions and events.

Sheffield’s col­lec­tions include over one mil­lion items. Orig­i­nal­ly formed through dona­tions from the Sheffield Lit­er­ary and Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety, these col­lec­tions were the basis for West­on Park Muse­um when it opened in 1875. 

Photo: Victoria Lucas

In 2025 the Heavy Water Col­lec­tive were com­mis­sioned to curate an ambi­tious exhi­bi­tion to cel­e­brate the 150th anniver­sary of the West­on Park Muse­um. After months of explor­ing the rich con­tents of shelves, box­es and draw­ers, over 400 items from across the city’s col­lec­tions were select­ed for inclu­sion in the Gath­er­ing Land­scapes exhi­bi­tion, which opened to the pub­lic on the 27th Novem­ber 2025. In addi­tion, Haya-Baviera, Lucas and Whit­tle devel­oped new art­works in response to the col­lec­tions. In this sec­tion of the web­site, you will find doc­u­men­ta­tion of the research that each artist under­took in response to select­ed artefacts. 

Photo: Joanna Whittle

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Victoria Lucas

Photo: Heavy Water Collective

Min­er­al-rich flu­id seeps through bod­i­ly mat­ter, stone and flesh.

Resid­ual traces are cal­ci­fi­ca­tions of expres­sion, caught and held in the wake of the darkness.

Photo: Victoria Lucas

Aill­wee cave in Coun­ty Clare, Ire­land. Rains on the Bur­ren above fil­ter through the lime­stone and form sub­ter­ranean out­pour­ings. The walls are wet and weep­ing. 8000 year old sta­lag­mites glis­ten with the pas­sage of geo­log­i­cal time, drop by drop by cal­ci­fied drop. 

Natural History Collection, Weston Park Museum

Thou­sands of cal­ci­fied tears stored in a met­al cab­i­net. Frag­ile, stag­nant, dead. 

I imag­ine the moment that they became sep­a­rat­ed from the earth. Cleaved from the dark­ness and the cer­tain­ty of their growth in one vio­lent act. 

Photo: Victoria Lucas

Fleshy Caves

There is a cav­i­ty con­nect­ed to the eye that col­lects unshed tears. Blink­ing back the tears cre­ates inter­nal out­pour­ings. Salty tears are caught and held in the wake of the darkness.

We hold caves in our faces, where the sta­lag­mites of grief grow. 

Stiff upper lip.

Glass Cavern

These small glass lachry­mose ves­sels, often found in Roman tombs, are said to have con­tained the tears of mourn­ers. Emo­tion becomes a sub­stance to be cap­tured and col­lect­ed, to be held and interred. Exter­nal and inter­nal lachry­ma­to­ries for­mu­late a dynam­ic that shifts between sto­icism and despair. Tears roll down cheeks and fill sacs before the salt crys­tallis­es. Sta­lag­mites and sta­lac­tites grow until they are thick with meaning. 

Material Explorations of Lachrymatories

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Land­scapes and bod­ies are ves­sels of grief. 

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Photo: Victoria Lucas

Flesh and Stone,

Min­er­al and Bone.

Photo: Jules Lister

Victoria Lucas, Draperies (encased), 2025

Draperies (encased), 2025

Vic­to­ria Lucas (b.1982)

Jes­monite, pig­ment, mesh, cal­ci­um car­bon­ate, wax, varnish

Cav­ern floor with Cave Pearls

Ecton Mine, Staffordshire

Arag­o­nite, Flos-fer­ri

Eisen­erz, Austria

Sta­lac­tites and Stalagmites

Der­byshire

Photo: Jules Lister

Photo: Jules Lister

Aillwee Cave. Photo: Victoria Lucas 

Photo: Jules Lister

Victoria Lucas, Excavation (blinking back), 2025

Pho­to: Jules Lister

Exca­va­tion (blink­ing back), 2025

Vic­to­ria Lucas (b.1982)

Jes­monite, salt, pearles­cent ink, graphite, recon­sti­tut­ed foam, wire armatures

Lachry­mose ves­sels are ancient Roman and Greek glass bot­tles, also called lacrimaria or tear catch­ers, that were once believed to have been used by mourn­ers to col­lect tears. Exca­va­tion (Blink­ing Back) responds to these arte­facts while also refer­ring to bio­log­i­cal lacrimal sacs, part of the tear drainage sys­tem that col­lects tears before they trav­el down into the nasal cav­i­ty. This work explores resilience and sto­icism in times of cri­sis, includ­ing the require­ment to inter­nalise earth­ly suf­fer­ings and what this inter­nal­i­sa­tion of suf­fer­ing might mean for future generations. 

Maud Haya-Baviera

Photo: Jules Lister

The Tears of Artemis 2025

In Decem­ber 2024, Sheffield Muse­ums invit­ed the Heavy Water Col­lec­tive to curate the 150th-anniver­sary exhi­bi­tion at West­on Park Muse­um and to pro­duce a new art­work in response to the city’s archives. Over the fol­low­ing six months, the col­lec­tive under­took exten­sive archival research, engag­ing with arte­facts and mate­ri­als span­ning from 500 mil­lion years ago to the present day. From an ini­tial longlist of objects, they began to trace their indi­vid­ual his­to­ries and uncov­er con­nec­tions between them, rela­tion­ships that are now artic­u­lat­ed with­in the exhi­bi­tion. The Tears of Artemis emerged direct­ly from this cura­to­r­i­al process. This art­work was cre­at­ed specif­i­cal­ly for the exhi­bi­tion Gath­er­ing Land­scapes, incor­po­rat­ing ele­ments from each of its cura­to­r­i­al sec­tion. The work alludes to rit­u­al and belief, serv­ing as a small mon­u­ment to the god­dess Artemis and her imag­ined tears.

Photo: Jules Lister

Photo: Jules Lister

The work func­tions as a kind of visu­al reli­quary, a tiled com­po­si­tion of rep­re­sent­ed land­scapes where foliage, moun­tains, and geo­log­i­cal stra­ta evoke the tex­tures of ancient relief sculp­ture. At its cen­tre is the head of Artemis, a stone frag­ment dredged from the waters near Poz­zuoli, Naples. Esti­mat­ed to be around two thou­sand years old, the sculp­ture was brought to Sheffield and donat­ed by Rev­erend Gre­ville John Chester in 1875. As a col­lect­ed object, it speaks to the endur­ing pow­er of human cre­ativ­i­ty, but also points to his­to­ries of extrac­tion, dis­place­ment, and the often-destruc­tive impuls­es behind col­lec­tion and acqui­si­tion. The Tears of Artemis also takes the form of a func­tion­al struc­ture. Its table­top design was made specif­i­cal­ly to host the stone head, echo­ing a time when stat­ues, and art more broad­ly, served vital social pur­pos­es. Through such works, sys­tems of belief, hope, and col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty were made tan­gi­ble and shared across com­mu­ni­ties. In bring­ing togeth­er ancient arte­fact and con­tem­po­rary form, The Tears of Artemis invites reflec­tion on how we inher­it, inter­pret, and repur­pose the past. It reminds us that land­scapes, both phys­i­cal and cul­tur­al, are lay­ered with mean­ing, shaped by rev­er­ence as much as by rup­ture. In doing so, the work offers a qui­et but pow­er­ful med­i­ta­tion on con­ti­nu­ity, loss, and the endur­ing human need to make sense of the world through art.

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Photo: Maud Haya-Baviera