Caroline Saunders works in stone and wood from her studio on the edge of Dartmoor, and was another participant of Portland Sculpture & Quarry Trust’s One Island - Many Visions exhibition earlier this year.

A Develop Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England enabled Saunders to create a new site-specific piece for the event, in partnership with nearby Albion Stone. The installation, Portland Stack, draws on Portland’s quarrying heritage by repurposing discarded stone. The work pays tribute to the quarrymen who once arranged unwanted or flawed blocks into stacks, leaving behind the distinctive labyrinthine structures that thread through Tout Quarry. Saunders echoes this tradition with a family of vertical stone stacks, each with its own stance and personality.

The pieces appear deliberately off-balance, their silhouettes referencing three signature traits of the island: the rolling contours of the landscape, the hand tools once used by Portland’s stone workers, and the windswept trees shaped by the island’s constant exposure. 

The playfulness of the work clearly rubbed off on visitors to the site, who Caroline notes got involved with the work, “I made a few little piles of stone near my work and was so happy when I saw they had multiplied with some even appearing on my sculptures - the best feedback!”

By elevating overlooked quarry waste into poised sculptural forms, Caroline folds Portland’s past into a contemporary conversation, turning remnants of industry into objects of quiet reflection and unexpected joy.