‘Monumental’ outdoor sculptures made of hay and straw appear on East Sussex seafront – in photos

Soft Machines is a new public artwork by Ivan Morison, developed with Heather Peak, and is on display until May 24 as part of Brighton Festival.

The Brighton Festival website at brightonfestival.org said: “Installed on Hove Promenade, between sea and city, it appears as a set of monumental, embodied forms. Moving from public life drawing into communal fabrication, the project foregrounds negotiations of looking, touch, trust and becoming.”

Brighton Festival said the work started life with a city-wide programme of public life-drawing sessions, which brought together hundreds of participants.

The website said: “Alongside the life-drawing classes, Ivan walked the Sussex landscape, meeting growers and fabricators, and taking inspiration from the land they worked with.”

The huge sculptures are filled with agricultural materials, like hay, straw and hemp.