Dunhill and O’Brien’s ongoing series of short films, collectively titled The Sculpture Stories emerge from a succession of small, everyday epiphanies. These moments are prompted by an eclectic range of encounters and memories: squashed frogs on a road in Thailand; linoleum samples used as draught-proofing by an octogenarian; endlessly recycled balls of wool; a radio sound-effects studio visited in 1963; a sleepless night spent worrying about a sculpture; a cartoon about Henry Moore; an art tutor’s advice on avoiding overworking; tools handled by an eight-year-old; the Reader’s Digest Repair Manual; and a sculpture professor’s belief in the transformational power of the plinth.
Each film attempts to capture a moment when something profoundly sculptural is revealed about the world, or when something unexpectedly worldly is revealed about sculpture. Along the way, a quietly personal narrative begins to emerge.