A New Giant Beside Cerne Abbas
A striking new artwork has joined the Dorset landscape: the Consequences Giant, created beside the ancient Cerne Abbas Giant as part of the national Nature Calling arts project.
The figure was designed from the ideas and artwork of asylum seekers, schoolchildren, and people with learning disabilities in Yeovil. Participants collected natural materials from the hillside — chalk, flowers, butterfly wings — which were woven into the design. The resulting giant is genderless, with flower eyes, butterfly ears, tentacle legs, and a heart made from petals representing each asylum seeker involved.
Artist Becca Gill, who led the project, explained:
“I hoped it would make its creators and viewers feel like giants by coming together in appreciation of nature.”
The collaborative process had powerful effects. Gill recalls:
“Even though the groups live in Yeovil, a few miles away, none of them had been to the Cerne Abbas Giant before. Their reactions were extraordinary. One non-verbal child spoke for the first time. The asylum seekers and refugee children were able to play, be joyful and be giant.”
The Consequences Giant was produced on four canvases covering an area of 30m x 40m — about three-quarters the size of the Cerne Abbas Giant — and funded by Arts Council England and Dorset National Landscape.
After its time at Cerne Abbas, the artwork will tour the region:
13–14 September – Summerhouse Hill, Yeovil (with a celebratory parade)
20–21 September – Corfe Castle, Dorset
Image by David Levene
