Vinculum Shelves (I & II)

The Vinculum Shelves extend Meredith’s sustained investigation into the structural and expressive capacities of green ash. The title, derived from the Latin for “bond” or “link,” signals the conceptual underpinning of the work: a binding of structure and surface, process and form, function and sculpture.

Here, solid planks of ash are subjected to steam bending, a process that temporarily releases the rigidity of the fibres, allowing the timber to be reconfigured without severing its continuity. Steam simultaneously facilitates shaping and accelerates seasoning, so that transformation and stabilisation occur within a single material event. The resulting forms retain a palpable sense of tension, the memory of resistance held within their curvature.

Large bent sections operate structurally and visually, generating rhythm through repetition and restraint. The shelves are neither decorative nor overtly expressive; rather, they emerge from a measured negotiation between utility and material behaviour. Their sophistication lies in their economy, an insistence that structural necessity and aesthetic resolution are inseparable.

In an age of accelerated production, these works propose an alternative temporality. They foreground process, patience, and a close reading of material properties. By working with native ash, a species both culturally embedded and environmentally vulnerable — Meredith situates the shelves within a broader discourse on landscape, stewardship and continuity.

Together, the Vinculum Shelves articulate a refined sculptural language in which craft knowledge, architectural sensibility and ecological awareness converge.