The first in a series three sculptures tells the dark story of sugar and were created for a themed exhibition entitled Mercurial.

Sugar is inherently mercurial.  It melts, crystallises, dissolves and reforms.  It can shift between solid, liquid and back to a solid state.

Sugar is presented both as a material and a metaphor for mercurial.  Mercurial is something characterised by changeability, instability and volatility.

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, 2026
Sugar, Maderia Cake
Weight 4kg (but ever changing)

Borrowing its title from Marshall Berman’s 1982 book, this work reflects on modernity’s relentless change driven by capitalism and technology. Sugar—one of the first truly global commodities—powered the rise of modern capitalism, reshaping landscapes while the transatlantic slave trade displaced millions. Local traditions and economies were dismantled for the profit of a few and the exploitation of the many.

Madeira’s plantation model became the blueprint for sugar plantations across the Americas, so it seemed apt to use a Madeira to form the sculpture’s foundation. On top a map of continental Africa is rendered in muscovado sugar, which contains about 15% molasses—a by-product of refining sugar and once fed to livestock and enslaved people before being commercialised for further profit.  These materials therefore carry traces of the history of sugar.

In the heatwave of June 2026 the sculpture began to melt, not only embodying the work’s title but highlighting the mercurial nature of sugar.

The other two sculptures in the series Sweet Bitter and Sword of Damacles (7:18)