Artist Agnes Jones has used the two-headed Janus for the new gate design installed at St Clement’s housing scheme at Mile End as part of a public artworks project.
Her theme shows the gateway at the former hospital site linking the Mile End Road with Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park at the back, a transition between the busy main road on one side and the tranquil park on the other.
Janus is the two-headed god and protector of thresholds which is also shown alongside images of new and old East End trades. The arch itself is inspired from community workshops and architectural features of the old St Clement’s Hospital which closed in 2006.
Other artworks being installed when the development is complete include waymarkers and two sculptural portraits, to mark the lives of suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst who set up her campaign 100 years ago in Bow and the post-war Labour prime minister Clement Attlee who was the Limehouse MP at the time.
The public art is part of the Linden Homes’ 38 apartments housing scheme at St Clement’s which also has Britain’s first urban land trust scheme.
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