The standing stone fired beneath the Sky Tip returns to Clay Country

Six thousand years of Clay Country history sit behind a single ceramic stone. It stands two metres tall, it was shaped by hundreds of hands, and it was fired in a kiln built specially for the job beneath the Sky Tip. From next month you can stand next to it.

A standing stone returns to the community that helped create it

A spectacular two-metre-tall standing stone will take centre stage at a new exhibition on display in Cornwall from next month.

And Everything And Nothing Has Changed (2021) was an ambitious public arts and heritage project by Robin James Sullivan that explored how landscapes hold memory and change. Developed across Cornwall’s China Clay Country, the project brought together over 450 participants through workshops, conversations, field trips and creative events.

The exhibition of the same name opens at Wheal Martyn Clay Works near St Austell in August. It explores landscape, memory, industry and community through sculpture, performance and fieldwork. Its centrepiece is the two-metre ceramic standing stone, collaboratively designed and built by local communities before being fired in a purpose-built kiln beneath the iconic Sky Tip on the edge of St Austell, just a couple of miles from Wheal Martyn.

📷The iconic Sky Tip on the edge of St Austell, which inspired the project.

What the work is about

Robin explained the thinking behind it.

“At its core this work was about bringing people together to unite, share and celebrate. It’s about landscapes, and how we as communities shape them and in return are shaped by them,” they said.

“Taking the 70km section of land known as ‘the St Austell china clay Winning and Working area’ as a starting point, the work explores its 6,000-year history of occupation; its communities and culture over millennia and into the future.”

The exhibition includes the ceramic standing stone, created with local residents in tribute to the ancient sites consumed by the expansion of the clay industry. The impressive kiln that fired it goes on display too, alongside photographs, films and objects that document the 2021 project.

Sarah C Jane, Collections Manager at Wheal Martyn, said the location made sense.

“Robin’s work is rooted in our landscapes and communities, entwined with a sense of what has been lost, and gained, through the expansion of the china clay industry. So it is fitting that this evocative exploration of Clay Country is on display here at Wheal Martyn so close to the Sky Tip that inspired it.”

When and where to see it

The exhibition runs in the Roger Preston Gallery at Wheal Martyn Clay Works from Saturday 1 August until Thursday 8 October 2026. Entry is included in the standard museum admission.

And Everything And Nothing Has Changed was funded and supported by Austell Projects, Creative Civic Change, Arts Council England, Royal Cornwall Museum, Wheal Martyn Museum, Cornwall College, Cultivator Cornwall, EcoBos, Imerys, White Gold Festival and Andrew.

More details are on the Wheal Martyn website.

About Robin Sullivan

📷Artist Robin Sullivan.

Robin Sullivan is a queer, neurodiverse and mentally disabled artist whose practice spans sculpture, performance and collaborative public programmes. Engaging with the landscapes and mythologies of the British Isles, they explore themes of identity, memory and community. Their work is deeply influenced by their lived experience with bipolar disorder and reflects an interplay between research and spontaneity. Robin creates participatory, site-responsive works that invite connection, reflection and celebration.

About Wheal Martyn

Wheal Martyn Clay Works is a museum and heritage centre on the outskirts of St Austell, a registered charity (number 1001838). Set in 26 acres, its collections and historic buildings tell the story of Cornwall’s largest mining industry. It offers learning and community engagement, which matters more as fewer people have first-hand experience of the industry that shaped the lives, landscape and economy of mid-Cornwall.

Wheal Martyn (PL26 8XG) is six miles from the A30 on the B3274, two miles north of St Austell.

📷The ceramic standing stone was fired in a purpose-built kiln beneath the Sky Tip.