'Full Circle' Artist Talk with Mary Branson - Saturday 20th June 2026
'Full Circle' Artist Talk with Mary Branson - Saturday 20th June 2026
Join us for a very special afternoon event split across our Indoor Gallery and out in the Sculpture Garden, with installation artist and ceramicist Mary Branson.
Mary will lead us on a fascinating visual journey through her commissions - both temporary and permanent in the Surrey Hills. After a break for refreshments, we will leave the Indoor Gallery for a walk to experience her most emotive installation ‘A Conversation with My Mother’ - a sculpture and sound piece featuring poetry read by Mary and her mother, who sadly suffered with dementia. This piece has never been placed outside before, and the connection to the soft surroundings of the Sculpture Garden has elevated this work to a whole new level.
Further afield, Mary has been commissioned for the Houses of Parliament, the London Olympics, and Salisbury Cathedral. She is truly inspirational - and we are honoured to display two of her astonishing sound installations from June 2026.
Saturday 20th June 2026.
Timings: 5pm to 7pm, including break. (timings subject to slight change, TBC)
Light refreshments* will be provided in the interval.
~ You are welcome earlier to explore the rest of the Sculpture Garden ~
The Indoor Gallery is located up a flight of stairs - at this time the space does not have disabled access.
BOOKINGS CLOSE - Saturday 13th June 2026
*Teas, French-press coffee and scrumptious homemade cakes (vegan option available, please select dietary requirements at check-out).
Images courtesy of the artist.
‘New Dawn’ - Westminster Hall, Parliament, 2016 - celebrating 150 years of Women’s Votes
‘Silent Choir’ - Waterloo Festival , St Johns Church 2025
‘Harvest’ - Box Hill, 2018
‘The Undertow’ - Albury Church, 2024
Mary Branson is best known for her large-scale light works and installations, particularly the iconic ‘New Dawn’ sculpture in the Houses of Parliament, which celebrates the centenary of the Suffrage movement. It is the first permanent piece of contemporary art in the Palace of Westminster. She has created light and sound works for the London 2012 Olympics, Royal Holloway University, Salisbury Cathedral and ‘Harvest’ a huge site specific installation at Box Hill, Surrey, highlighting the plight of farmers facing climate change.
Mary is an award winning print maker, a choreographer for performance and dance events, a mentor and public speaker. She has held a number of artistic residencies, including for Parliament, the British Council, Crisis, RHS Wisley and Watts Gallery, where she led an art group for women prisoners at HMP Send.
She enjoys the challenge of using landscape and architecture as a backdrop to site determined pieces. She often works with large teams of volunteers to help her realise her ambitious use of scale and finds the shared ownership of the community an important part of her artistic process.
As many of her installations are temporary, Mary’s projects encompass elements of performance, photography, film and sound as forms of documentation. She also produces smaller scale works in glass and ceramics.
Her work is rooted in a sensitivity to landscape, politics, and the passage of time —often transforming architectural and natural settings into spaces of collective reflection.
She is a member of the historic London Group and the Royal Society of Sculptors