A joint project between artist Rana Begum and Steve Webb of engineering firm Webb Yates sees a pink, fenced sculpture erected in the heart of London. Fabricated in collaboration with open-access workshop BLOQs, with materials lent by Albion Stone, No.1616 Fence (2026) is a timely response to the 2026 London Festival of Architecture's theme, 'Belonging'. The sculpture is reflected and refracted by the wide windows of the central London brutalist architecture landmark Space House, offering a moment of quiet contemplation on what it means to belong, and indeed to not belong.
Explore Rana Begum and Webb Yates' installation for LFA 2026
The piece is the latest in a series of collaborations for Begum and Webb. As with their previous installation in Verbier, No. 1387 Fence, the pair set themselves the challenge of erecting their sculpture with minimal environmental impact, by using a base of materials native to the site. In Verbier, these were logs; in London, Portland stone.
Webb explains: 'So much art has a big lump of concrete under the ground… Here, the context is the City of London and Portland stone. We have a good relationship with Albion Stone, so they lent us a block. The reason [the sculpture is] clamped [to the plinth] is so the block isn't cut or broken [...] there's no welding or cutting, everything can be taken to bits.' He continues, 'We’re trying to do something that brings a lot of joy, but actually isn't wasteful or impactful.'
On the origins of this body of work, Begum explains: 'I think for me, when I'm making (the work), it wasn't about identity, it wasn't about culture, it wasn't about religion. I realised one of the things I've been really driven by is this idea of the infinite. Like, how tall Steve can get this to go, but I love that you can play with the idea of the infinite. You can push the boundaries of some of the limits of engineering as well as this visual splendour that you have with material and sculpture and spaces.'
Begum and Webb are quick to highlight that the making of this sculpture goes beyond just the hands of an artist and an engineer, with many other actors involved; namely, Arnauld Nichols, director of BLOQs (the UK’s largest open-access factory) and Sam Kennedy of Commissioned by You, a studio that operates from the facility. Says Nichols: 'We've been around for 14 years. We call ourselves a pay-as-you-go factory, and we're there to provide anyone access to really good manufacturing equipment and workspace.'
With more than 1,000 small and medium businesses, BLOQs boasts a network of users working at all types of scales. 'Our whole mission is, don't tie people down to creativity, let them do [manufacturing] when they need it. [We offer] machines that are normally unaffordable to small, medium, or even large businesses; you put amazing modern tech together with new or existing talent, and then that brings great stuff.’
This way of working couldn’t have been a better fit for Begum and Webb’s site-specific, temporary installation. 'It's a combination of vision and sign-off and delivery, when no one's doubting each other,' affirms Begum.
With uncharacteristically hot and stormy weather expected for the month of June, when LFA runs, Webb Yates had to conduct climate-related stress tests and even consider the possibility of people climbing on the piece – a totemic-like sculpture that commands a moment of pause, pushing the gaze upwards to see how it contrasts with the giant skyscrapers that enclose it.
On the theme 'Belonging', Webb says: 'Belonging had a slightly sinister edge to me. And I think with the vision, the fencing, our collaboration is [about not belonging]. You know, we're working together across fields and across fences and barriers, and we're going where we don't belong.'
