JEPHSON Robb, the sculptor behind the International Asbestos Memorial being unveiled today as a tribute to thousands of people who have lost their lives, has revealed how he came up with the impressive perfect steel cube design.
The Glasgow artist was chosen by the Clydebank Asbestos Group (CAG) to design a sculpture to remember victims who are already known and those victims who are yet unknown throughout the world.
Robb, who read political economics at Glasgow University before moving to London in 2001 to study an MA in design at the Royal College of Art under influential designer Ron Arad, was approached by the asbestos group after his Chain Link Sculpture at Clyde Gate in Clydebank was unveiled by Hope Robertson, CAG’s secretary.
Robb spent six months researching asbestos and trying to understand the suffering thousands of victims went through.
Only then was he able to make sense of it all and design a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives and to many more who are still not known.
He chose stainless steel because it has a direct reference to the heavy industry and shipbuilding history of Clydebank and designed a perfect cube.
On one side, the names of over 500 known victims are engraved on a plaque. The other side is blank, ready and waiting for the names of the victims who are yet to come. They will be added every year at a memorial service.
The memorial will be unveiled at 11am today in Clydebank by Fiona McGuire, whose late husband Frank, of Thompsons Solicitors, fought tirelessly for justice for asbestos victims over the years.
Robb said: “I have put a lot of work into this. I spent six months researching it and understanding what is involved in the suffering before I even started.
“This is the International Asbestos Memorial and its strapline is ‘for all those known and unknown’ because there are people all over the world affected by asbestos. The history of it is that people were provided with misinformation and there is continuing misinformation.
“The Clydebank Asbestos Group contacted me a year ago and said they were looking for a memorial and I had previously done a memorial sculpture for Clydebank Rebuild commissioned by Eleanor McAllister. Hope Robertson was one of the people who unveiled the sculpture so she knew the quality of my work and what I was about.
“She asked me to come and speak to the group so I did that and asked them what they were trying to do and they said it was about getting truth and justice for victims of asbestos.
“So the memorial was based upon the mission of seeking truth and justice.
“There are many groups who seek truth and justice for victims of asbestos but one of the things I liked about this group was that they acknowledged that they are one of many and they do their part, they are there to help directly with individuals who are suffering
“They are doing this on a very local personal level but they are also doing it on a national and, at some levels, international level by seeking changes in the law here which will have an effect around the world. They acknowledge the global nature of the problem.”
It was only after he was satisfied with his research that he began to create a memorial representing the mission to symbolise truth.
He added: “I wanted to create something that was representative of the Clydebank folk that had been working in the heavy industry – solid, good, strong people who unfortunately, have had their lives taken early because of asbestos.
“As part of the research I discovered that there are people that we know about that have lost their lives but there are many, many more people who we don’t know about within Clydebank and globally. I thought this was a really important issue and we should acknowledge people of the known and the unknown, that is why the name of the memorial was extended to include that. The design of the memorial is such that it takes its form from a perfect cube. A perfect cube when viewed from any angle is the same, and basically, when the truth is viewed from any perspective, it’s the same.
“So the form of a perfect cube is the symbol of truth. It is built to human scale because this is about human suffering and the human spirit because although many people have died, the people in Clydebank Asbestos Group have shown great spirit and energy to continue their fight for truth and justice for victims for over 20 years.
“The memorial stands about two metres high, there are five sections to it. It is designed so that when you move around it, it effectively visually opens and closes which represents a healthy pair of lungs which open and close as you breathe, and as we know asbestos predominately affects the lungs.”
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