LAZERIAN

09/10/2026

Following the Threads 🧵

From a single artwork to a growing public art trail, Lines of Thought continues to evolve.

To celebrate World Cotton Day, we joined the Science and Industry Museum to explore Manchester’s relationship with cotton, the stories woven into its history and what the future of this industry might look like.

Our latest blog looks back at how the project began, how it’s developed and how we’re inviting communities to help shape its next chapter.

Read the full story here 👇

https://lazerian.com/blog/following-the-threads-world-cotton-day-and-the-evolution-of-lines-of-thought/

Discover how Liam Hopkins’ Lines of Thought evolved into a public art trail exploring Manchester’s complex relationship with cotton.

07/10/2026

It’s World Cotton Day! 🌍

Today Liam will be at the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, as part of their World Cotton Day programme.

From 2.30–5pm, Liam will be running workshops around our Lines of Thought project, exploring Manchester’s connections to cotton and the people, places and stories woven into its history.

Later this evening, he’ll be joining Keisha Thompson and a brilliant panel of speakers for a wider conversation about Manchester’s relationship with cotton and its legacy today.
If you’re in Manchester, come down, get involved and say hello- we’d love to see you!
📍 Science and Industry Museum
🕝 Daytime activities: 2.30–5pm
🎟 Free, drop-in

17/09/2026

Bob Dylan, built from type.

Thousands of pieces of traditional letterpress type come together to form a portrait — transforming the building blocks of language into sculpture.

Part of TYPEFACES, an ongoing project by / Lazerian celebrating influential figures whose words have shaped culture.

ContemporaryArt

21/08/2026

TYPE FACES

This project really started with something pretty simple.

Years ago, my partner and I used to do quite a bit of letterpress printing. I always loved the process, choosing the individual letters, putting everything together by hand, getting covered in ink and eventually seeing the words pressed into the paper.

It also got me thinking about how much work used to go into producing the words we read.

Not that long ago, newspapers were put together by compositors working through the night, physically arranging individual letters ready for the morning print run.

Digital printing changed all of that, and gradually a lot of those skills disappeared.

Now it feels like we’re at another interesting point.

AI is changing the way we write and create words, just as digital technology changed the way we printed them.

That got me thinking about the people behind the words, the writers, poets, singer-songwriters, activists and authors who have managed to say something that sticks with us.

Type Faces is my way of celebrating some of those people, creating their portraits using the physical language of type and the words they’re known for.

The first in the series is Bob Dylan someone whose words have travelled far beyond music and become part of our wider culture.

This film explains a bit more about where the idea came from, the process behind it and why I’ve kept coming back to it.

More Type Faces to come.

Who would you like to see become a Type Face?

Typography Printmaking ContemporaryArt

20/08/2026

Material Matters // SHOT

For SHOT, imperfection became part of the material language.
Each of the metal soldiers suspended within the installation was individually cast, creating subtle differences from one figure to the next.

Normally, casting is about achieving consistency—producing the same object repeatedly and removing anything considered a flaw. For SHOT, we wanted the opposite.
No perfectly cast soldiers were allowed.

Marks, missing details and imperfections were deliberately retained so that every figure became individual. These weren’t intended to represent pristine toy soldiers; their damaged and incomplete forms reference the darker consequence of the lead shot once manufactured in the tower opposite.

Hundreds of these individual castings were then suspended through the atrium, transforming small, imperfect objects into a much larger composition. From a distance they create the sensation of falling material; only as you move closer do their individual forms and imperfections become apparent.
The casting process therefore became more than a method of manufacture. It became another way of telling the story.

For us, Material Matters isn’t always about finding perfection in a material. Sometimes it’s the inconsistencies, marks and evidence of the making process that give an artwork its meaning.

17/08/2026

Looking Back // SHOT

This week we’re looking back at SHOT, a site-specific sculptural installation created for the reception of Moxy Chester in 2021.
The starting point for the project was directly outside the hotel.
Opposite Moxy stands Chester’s historic Shot Tower, a surviving landmark from the city’s industrial past and once part of a remarkable process used to manufacture lead shot.

Molten lead was poured from the top of the tower through a perforated plate, almost like a shower head. The size of each opening determined the size of the shot, while the height of the fall allowed the droplets of lead to naturally form into spheres before landing in water at the bottom, where they cooled and solidified.

It was this process that became the starting point for SHOT.
Suspended through the height of the hotel’s atrium, hundreds of individually cast figures appear to rain down through the space, capturing the sense of movement and falling material that would once have existed inside the tower.

But the installation also begins to question what was being manufactured and why. Look closer and the falling forms reveal themselves as soldiers, introducing a more uncomfortable side to the story of lead shot and its eventual purpose.
Rather than recreating the Shot Tower, we wanted to take the history sitting immediately outside the building and reinterpret it as an experience within.

Over the coming week, we’ll be looking closer at the layers of thinking, materials and making behind SHOT.

14/08/2026

Legacy // Seven Sisters

Public art has the opportunity to become part of a place’s identity.
For Seven Sisters, that meant creating more than a new landmark for Winsford Town Park. It was about recognising the town’s industrial heritage and translating it into a contemporary artwork that could continue to be used and experienced by the community.

The sculptures were finished in white, referencing the salt that shaped Winsford’s history. During the development of the project, a local priest also shared the idea that white contains all colours, a thought that resonated with Liam and added another layer to the decision.
That idea has continued beyond the original installation.

The white structures provide a neutral canvas for light, allowing them to be illuminated in different colours for local events, celebrations and occasions. Community groups have taken ownership of the sculptures in this way, adapting their appearance and giving Seven Sisters a changing role within the park.

Years after installation, the artwork continues to connect Winsford’s past with its present: rooted in the salt industry and the skyline that once defined the town, but able to change and respond to the community around it.

For us, that’s what gives public art lasting value, not simply how it looks when it’s installed, but how people make it their own afterwards.



Images taken from The Northwich Guardian to showcase the lighting that had been added to illuminate the Seven Sisters. The Friends of Winsford Park group have been vital in keeping the sculptures and the park looking it best. A prime example of a community group volunteering to make their local area better 👏

12/08/2026

Welcome to the Lazerian Mobile Studio 🚐

It’s a vehicle for going places, meeting people and making things together.

Along the way, we uncover stories, share skills, craft objects and create memories—leaving behind something meaningful that can become part of a place’s ongoing story.

It’s a studio, a workshop and a meeting place, all on wheels.

There’s plenty more to share, but for now, this is the beginning of the journey.

Design

12/08/2026

Material Matters // Seven Sisters

At the heart of Seven Sisters is a material that isn’t physically present in the finished sculpture: salt.
The structures were fabricated from steel, but their geometry was developed from the molecular structure of salt. Individual wireframe octahedrons were created in three different sizes and connected together to build each of the sculptural forms.

Rather than creating eight identical pieces, these repeating geometric units allowed every sculpture to develop differently. Each became its own organic, deconstructed interpretation of the chimney and salt-stack forms that inspired the project.
Steel was welded to create the open structures before being powder coated for longevity, allowing the sculptures to withstand their permanent outdoor setting while retaining the lightness and transparency of the original concept.

There is an intentional contrast between the two materials at the centre of the idea: salt- fragile, soluble and historically extracted from beneath Winsford and steel, strong, permanent and closely associated with industry.

By translating the structure of salt into steel, the material that shaped Winsford’s past became embedded into the physical language of the artwork.

For us, material choices aren’t only about what something is made from. They’re also about what that material can represent.