15 July 2026

A spectacular two-metre-tall standing stone will take centre stage at a new exhibition on display at Wheal Martyn 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, opening at Wheal Martyn Clay Works in August, 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 miles from Wheal Martyn.

The artist explained: “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.

“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 that was created with local residents in tribute to the ancient sites consumed by the expansion of the clay industry, as well as the impressive kiln that fired it, alongside photographs, films and objects that document the 2021 project.

Sarah C Jane, Collections Manager at Wheal Martyn, said: “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.”

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 & Andrew.

The exhibition is on display 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.