Mounted on the corner of Carisbrooke Road and the High Street, the Walthamstow Griffin is a celebration of the history and heritage of Walthamstow Market, writes Marco Marcelline
A Walthamstow Market sculpture of a griffin made with discarded plastic is celebrating its third birthday this week.
Mounted on the corner of Carisbrooke Road and the High Street, the Walthamstow Griffin was unveiled on 3rd December 2022 by local arts organisation Artillery and artist Sandie M Sutton.
The griffin, flanked by a unique collection of flags co-created with artist Alisa Ruzavina, was born from funding secured by Artillery for contemporary artwork inspired by the under-told stories of the people and heritage of Walthamstow High Street.
Speaking to the Echo in 2022, Sandie said she was inspired to make the sculpture after seeing the wall-mounted dragons that decorate Chinatown in central London.
She explained: “I thought we really should have something like that in Walthamstow but we needed to find the right idea to fit this area.
“[I and Laura Kerry from Artillery] both like the griffins [stonework motifs] at the St James Street end of the market and the more we researched the mythology of these incredible creatures, the more we realised how much they fitted with the High Street.
“Many traders carried representations of them because they were seen to bring good fortune and to be protectors of gold and gold can be symbolic of all sorts of things.”
The Walthamstow Griffin is also inspired by the repeating stonework motifs on the heritage buildings of the High Street.
Created with discarded plastic objects, The Walthamstow Griffin additionally encourages people to question whether our reliance on plastics is helping or harming our planet, our wildlife and ourselves.
The social health aim of the arts project comes as it was revealed by health journal The Lancet that 80% of all plastics ever made (approximately 8 billion tonnes) now pollute the planet, while microplastics found in human tissue are causing ever greater concern.
Read more about how the sculpture was created and all the talented people involved here
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