The Clicker - New Walk

This is another public art commission, which has been recently unveiled in Leicester.

Atkin was commissioned by The Friends of the New Walk to consider ways by which a public sculpture could commemorate the legacy of the British Shoe Industry within the county of Leicestershire and its impact worldwide. The friends were keen from the outset to commission an enduring sculpture that related to the industry but was not narrative of its craft. To this end, Atkin produced a series of drawings and maquettes of studies relating to boot patterns. His research took in museum archive collections as well as study visits at Equity Shoes.
From this research Atkin developed a range of ideas based on the elegant formal compositional elements of each boot pattern and how these templates could be articulated in a way to suggest the human form.

At the same time, Atkin was fascinated by the references made to people through tools and procedures for making shoes and boots. Out of this interest was born the title of the artwork, The Clicker.