New collaboration with Simon Armitage opens at Trinity College, University of Oxford

Standing next to Trinity College’s Stuart Gates is a rusted cast iron door designed by Antony Gormley and featuring a poem by Honorary Fellow of Trinity College and UK Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage.

The Stuart Gates are located on busy Parks Road, and the idea of an artwork that is both functional as an access point to the college and an object of contemplation was key to the development of the project. Antony Gormley says: ‘The idea of the threshold and the function of doors have been interests of mine for a long time; I want the physical engagement of approaching the door and going through it to be in balance with the door itself where word and material come together. Simon echoed the feelings I had about the door as the arbiter of inner and outer in a poem that gives the door a voice or a mind.’

The door itself will register the passage of time as it continues to rust, its patina evolving as the seasons change, while the touch of people passing through the door will polish the surface naturally. A series of raised concentric rings radiate out from the central silhouetted aperture, inviting passersby to consider where things – the body, time, space – begin and end.

A poem by Armitage, ‘Hinge’, appears in relief on the surface of the cast door. The poem brings attention to the two-way operation of the door, as both entrance and exit, emphasising the world as a place to be felt, sensed and imagined.

Photograph: A Door for the Stuart Gates, 2021, cast iron, 196 × 77.5 × 18.5 cm. Collaboration between Antony Gormley and Simon Armitage. Permanent installation, Trinity College, University of Oxford, England. Photographs by Theo Christelis.