The Ali Babas

Yes - mysteriously - the Ali Babas. A 1995 sculpture by Victoria Brailsford, on an island in the middle of the High St in Sheffield city centre. Apparently the six tall, slender pieces are reminiscent of the shape of  "Ali Baba baskets". I don't think I've ever knowingly come across one of those.  I learn about this comparison from an appropriately weighty reference book on public sculpture.

I've dodged the heavy showers today, picking up a few more last-minute sculpture photos for the ArtUK database project.  This piece was being repaired when I originally saw it, so I've been back today to complete the set it forms part of (the neighbouring pieces are 'Wheatsheaves', by Peter Yarwood, similarly marooned between tramlines and bus lanes).

These pieces date back to a period in the mid-1990s when Sheffield benefited from quite a lot of EU regional development funding. South Yorkshire ranked high at the time among Europe's more deprived regions.  This funding brought genuine revival to a city centre that had been seriously battered by the Thatcher period in the 1980s: the steel strikes and subsequent factory closures; the miners' strike and subsequent mine closures; the epic battles between Labour local councils and a Tory central government hell-bent on beating its opponents into submission. (In that, they largely succeeded).

I'm glad that pieces like this are still around, even if they've been weathered and overshadowed by planning changes, transport route changes and normal wear and tear.  Whether or not these particular pieces really resemble "Ali Baba baskets", they do have some lovely, delicate patterns carved into them: soft shapes of leaves and branches, that only become apparent when you get up close.  Maybe some people, pausing on the island as they cross the busy road, are cheered up or intrigued by them.