Over many years I have been fascinated by the sculpture and art work displayed on, what is called, the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London. Many of the installations featured have nudged me to think…and often write about.

The current piece is called Mil Veces un Instante, A Thousand Times An Instant, created by Teresa Margolles. It is a collection of masks created in plaster from 726 faces of trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people. The casts were made in Mexico City and Juárez, Mexico.

From a reasonable distance it looks like a collection of bowl, or dish shaped objects arranged in a symmetrical way to form a rectangular box. It is not until one looks more closely that the impression of the faces can be seen. The variation is colour is, apparently due to the makeup or other things that were on the persons’ face when the cast was made.

Some works of art make one feel or think something – sometimes they have a radical impact, positive or negative. Sometimes they leave little impression as one walks by.

To many people passing this object it will create little interest – perhaps because it has not been noticed, perhaps because there is the assumption it has been there for a long time. Perhaps because the person is in a hurry, enroute, with their mind on the last meeting or the next.

In spite of my usual interest, I merely took the picture and moved. I was with someone and our focus was elsewhere. It has been a few weeks since I took the picture and it has been sitting quietly in the back of my mind…until it surfaced a few days ago. My curiosity piqued as I know I will be passing by, in the coming days, when I will have more time to look closely.

The picture, as you can see, was taken on a dull day, with the grey granite stone ‘real estate’, plus the grey of the art work making it all blend into a rather drab cityscape.

Unfortunately, as it does look so regular in shape, and devoid of much colour, it makes the buildings around the Square look more interesting (I am sure not what the artist intended). The church in the background is St Martin-in-the-Fields – hard to imagine today that once it was in open fields and farmland. Then there is the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.

The more I look at the picture the more I can see; primarily because I am taking the time to look and be curious. Perhaps that is what this piece of artwork on the fourth plinth is making me do on this occasion, perhaps when I see it again, I will look more curiously at the actual piece itself.

In the world class galleries behind the fourth plinth there are many fine works of art I have not yet seen; many I have seen but not looked at for more than a passing moment (the usual time looking at a painting, I have heard, is between 7 and 17 seconds); some I have looked at carefully, albeit I am sure there would be more I could take from them if I looked again.

This all ties into some recent conversations I have been having about the different concepts of time the Greeks have considered.

• Chronos – quantitative, clock time, linear
• Kairos – qualitative, time of significance, ‘deep time’
• Aion – eternal, everlasting or unbounded
• Ora (Hora) – specific, a point in time

I can certainly appreciate the differences but I do wonder where I could/should have operated using a different type of time than the one used.

I am left with the thought that all too often, in the haste to get where I am going, it may be worthwhile to slow life a little…even embrace the Greek concepts of time.

Now that is perhaps a good way to reflect and plan too. And perhaps this rather grey scene has made more of an impression that I had realised - the piece of art on the fourth plinth having an impact after all.

My best wishes,

Peter