This commission is through Derby City Council and with particular support of Derby City Museum. The work will be sited in Allenton in the south of Derby where a regeneration of the area is taking place. Before the commissioning of the work local consultation took place which resulted in a number of points including the wish for the work to reflect the history but also the future of Allenton.

Historically Allenton is interesting as around 150 years ago the skeleton of a 130,000 year old hippopotamus was found here. The bones were removed to Derby Museum where they now reside…

Dan’s idea is to bring the Allenton Hippo back to Allenton,  a project he sees as similar to the Greeks desire to see the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum being returned to the Parthenon in Greece.

The sculpture will comprise a large ring of beautiful, polished, black granite which people can sit on. Set onto this will be replicas of parts of the extraordinary skeleton of the hippopotamus which was found near the Crown Inn over 100 years ago. These fascinating bones in Derby Museum will be transformed into cast iron from detailed copies in clay made of some of the more fragile bones and from 3D scans made with cutting edge laser technology from some other parts of the skeleton. This use of the latest technology, courtesy of Loughborough University brings a future context  to these elements of the work.

The future of Allenton will also be reflected through a series of sculpture workshops which Dan will lead in schools in Allenton.