Lizzie Lloyd: Your work is inspired by, not just the NHS, but in particular the cleaners of the NHS whose work and contribution often goes unrecognized (unlike the more obvious contributions of doctors and nurses). Why is this?

Sophie Fishel: I used to be prop maker for film and then an art fabricator for 10 years but I got made redundant in the pandemic. And then I made the quite radical decision to retrain as a physiotherapist. While I was training, I got a job as a cleaner in a hospital, having never worked in a hospital before. It was during the pandemic, and it was a wild experience. It was quite a shock. So for this work I wanted to celebrate people who play such a crucial part in the ecosystem of a hospital. I feel like in the pandemic cleaners did get some recognition, as we all became much more alert to the importance of cleanliness but that was quite quick to dissipate, as with many things. In hospitals cleaners are called domestic staff. No one wants to imagine their nan in hospital sleeping next to a big old bag of rubbish. But domestic staff do so much more than that too, I wanted to highlight the overall care that they provide. For example, they’re often the first people to wake up a patient in the morning, serving cups of tea, or having a conversation with a patient in a way that doctors and nurses don’t have the capacity to. It’s quite personal, quite tender and beautiful really. I want to celebrate these kinds of everyday acts that contribute to our collective healing.

Lizzie Lloyd: So how does this interest manifest in the new work for Your Space or Mine?

Sophie Fishel: For the plinth I’ve shaped sheet steel and welded a giant shoe, imitating a croc, which makes me think of healthcare. At the centre is what looks like a hairy leg, made of mops covered in resin. Then there’s an internal steel armature which leads to the top section that references a thigh which is also made of steel. Originally I’d wanted to fill this shape with sponges but that’s not very weather resistant!

Lizzie Lloyd: In 2022 you made a work called Hard Heart which connects to the spirit of empathy that your new work champions. You’ve written about it on your website as follows:

Sophie Fishel: “Love sensation. It’s such a good vibration. Love is a frequency. It is a strength to act with your heart. A heartless life is a sad life, soul-less. In the thousands of minutes that we exist across; break, ache, shake, breathe in. Life re-begins.

It is a strength to act with your heart… Our hearts run off electricity. Depolarised. Repolarised. We too are running off electricity. Depolarised. Repolarised. Overcharged and overworked batteries, recharged, plugged in to social media and politics and work and opinions and horrors and nights outs and fun and love, running on red.”

Lizzie Lloyd: There are some really interesting ideas in this poetic fragment where you’re taking a more nuanced look at the question of care. Can you unpack it a little?

Sophie Fishel: Hard Heart was a reaction to the ever-increasing global dehuminisation going on. I was frustrated by the chronic lack of empathy and cyanide politics we are witnessing, that fuels polarisation. It was a call to empathy, but not in a live, love, laugh kind of way, more as a plea. I was wondering what would happen if we all took the ‘camo’ off our hearts, and care a little more. Have more heart. As Benjamin Zephaniah said, ‘people need people’. I enjoy reading and writing, lyrics and words so much. I often write about my work after I’ve made it mostly because I enjoy discussing the influences behind each piece. Usually my sculpture ideas are quite immediate, I imagine them quite quickly and tend to build them in a big burst of energy.

Lizzie Lloyd: On your website you also say: ‘I often feel like we live in a simulator, an online game show that we can’t meme our way out of’ – I love this last phrase! You talk about the words of Elif Shafak who has described the current moment as an ‘age of speedy consumption’ and slogans, which brings us nicely to one of the billboards that will be on display for the launch of Praise You 2.0…

Sophie Fishel: Yes, one of them is going to say ‘Small Acts, Big Deal’. It’s written in my handwriting which is throughout the billboard designs. I use a colour scheme that mimics the sculpture to tie the sculpture and the billboards together in the space – royal blue and bright lime green. It will also have my original drawing of the sculpture from the proposal, acting as a small logo in the corner, which I drew on my Ipad. When I was making this work I was thinking about how social media has its perks, but it also plays a role in polarising us as a species, everything is instant, quick, anything and everything all at once. ‘Small Acts, Big Deal’ is a comment for all of us, a reminder that small things can really, really change your experience of the world. Actions that may seem small enough to be insignificant – like attending a protest as one individual or having a small interaction with someone who is lonely – is a really big deal in my mind. Even just the act of someone smiling at you in the street; it makes a difference.

Lizzie Lloyd: It’s particularly poignant right now, given the state of global politics, right?

Sophie Fishel: At the moment, the world is heavy, if you are paying attention, and if you care about others. That’s overwhelming. To focus more on smaller interactions with the people who are in front of you feels more important than ever, because this can sometimes be a bit of a balm to the hot mess that is the world.

Lizzie Lloyd: The title of the piece is Praise You 2.0. Can you tell me where this comes from? I can’t help but hear Fatboy Slim’s 1999 hit. Is that deliberate?

Sophie Fishel: It’s a fun song! I often weave song lyrics into my writing – I often have Shania’s ‘let’s go girls’ stuck in my head. I don’t want the phrase ‘Praise You’ to come off as patronising, but it’s easy to feel as though society values money and power above all else, which is off kilter. Often the wrong people are getting praised and attributes such as altruism and sharing aren’t given any airtime.

Lizzie Lloyd: You made another sculpture in 2022 that celebrates NHS cleaners called Praise You which is a 2-metre-high steel structure that resembles a yellow A-board warning or cleaning sign. On top of this structure there’s a purple and pink cut-out ‘crown’ of more abstract shapes which I read on your website represent epithelial cells. What are epithelial cells? Why are they important and what is their function in the body?

Sophie Fishel: Yes, this was the first sculpture I made after I was made redundant from my work as a fabricator. Epithelial cells are essential to life; they act as protectors of your body and all these tiny little individual cells work together to contribute systemically to your body’s health and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Sensory nerve endings within our epithelial tissues allow our bodies to receive outside sensory stimuli. In a way this reflects how I feel about the cleaners of the NHS. Their hard work allows us to receive medical care and focus on healing in a safe environment.

Lizzie Lloyd: You made another work in 2022 called BITS which also uses the form of single leg, reminiscent of Praise You 2.0. Do these two works deliberately reference a prosthetic leg?

Sophie Fishel: Yes. After being made redundant I retrained as a physiotherapist (it was that or become an engineer!) so I’m very interested in bodies. This move to physiotherapy actually came to me after I had a shoulder injury due to the heavy lifting involved in being a fabricator. I started seeing a massage therapist which got me really interested in anatomy and how bodies work.

Lizzie Lloyd: And their visibility?

Sophie Fishel: If you see a reference to a body in a public space, it rarely includes a prosthetic, although I think advertising is becoming more inclusive over time. Anyway, this current work for Your Space or Mine is an amalgamation of the sentiment behind Praise You, and the successful design elements of BITS. As this sculpture is public, I wanted to use the opportunity to reiterate my thanks to the domestic staff.

Lizzie Lloyd: What are the challenges to making public art? And how have you gone about navigating them?

Sophie Fishel: There are limitations, or rather, exciting challenges to making work that’s outside. In this instance I had to work to the specific dimensions of the plinth. The work has to withstand the weather and you have to accept that it might get graffitied! The site is opposite an incredible cultural institution in Bristol, called the Trinity Centre but it’s also at a busy crossroad with many people passing by in their day to day lives. It’s about grabbing their attention for one hot second. I think that’s why I turn to bold colours although I always wish I made demure art(!). But it’s also about making the experience not just accessible but relatable to lots of people, not just people who go to art galleries. And of course, the other thing I needed to think about was scale. But that’s fine, I love making big work! I once completed a residency at Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota which was quite life changing. The Midwest sky was vast and endless and the mantra was ‘Go big or go home!’.

Lizzie Lloyd: I read a recent statistic which said that women are responsible for just 13% of public art in London! I was so shocked by this. What does it mean to you to be a woman working in the public realm?

Sophie Fishel: I think that’s obviously very lame and quite a pathetic statistic! I’m not really surprised. As a fabricator and metal welder – roles that have often been predominantly held by men – I experienced sexism. In contrast, really experienced men also generously shared their making knowledge with me, whilst I snapped all their drill bits. But there are so many barriers to so many demographics in society. I’m a white woman. My background is not fancy, but middle class, so whilst it’s absolutely infuriating, it would be remiss to only talk about the barriers to being a woman and not talk about the other barriers. Like I wonder how many trans people or black women are responsible for public artworks in the UK?

Lizzie Lloyd: Where do you look for inspiration to feed your ideas?

Sophie Fishel: I’m a very curious person. I love talking. I love colour and texture. I find so much inspiration and thought-provoking things just through being alive and sharing the world together, like, I recently went to Rio Carnival in Brazil – you know, the floats in the carnival are just absolutely breathtaking. I think I always enjoy things that are very based on humans, on human experience. I love reading too. Recently I read Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto which is about the struggle of being creative and Poor Artists by the White Pube. I’ve found so much guidance via Sharmadean Reid, and listened to her New methods for Women. Naomi Klein and her phenomenal work Doppelganger is what I was listening to whilst I made Hard Heart. I have also been listening to the work of, Kae Tempest for many many years – I used to see their shows in Battersea Arts Centre … there’s so much!

Lizzie Lloyd: And why do these works inspire you?

Sophie Fishel: I think it’s about the absolute contradiction of being part of our human species because I think what I find so interesting is just how we are magical and fun and there’s so much beauty in being a human, but at the same time we are a detrimental species. I feel so heavy-hearted about so much that is going on in the world, but it’s important to take small actions and not be frozen by that sadness. Small Acts, Big Deal. It’s eight years since The Grenfell fire, and still no justice and there’s the occupation and the genocide of the Palestinian people, which has dominated my mind daily since October 2024, and I am constantly trying to take small acts. I’m really interested in people that speak truth about the here and now and also about history but who can also find joy and celebration in the more silliness of being a human.

Lizzie Lloyd: This sense of humour is a really important part of your work, isn’t it?

Sophie Fishel: I think humour is vital to being alive because it’s the tonic to the absolute madness of being part of our species. Sometimes I think there’s an assumption that you can’t be silly and respectable at the same time, but actually there’s so much intelligence in humour. It’s often very poignant and actually often very truthful. But I also think that humour brings a liveness, a fun energy that allows people access to art.