Made From What? (11 Photos)

October 3, 2026

By Vidar

Eleven works, thousands of parts

Up close, the works below come apart into driftwood, rusted gears, knife blades, ceramic tiles, car tires and plastic waste. From a few steps back, most of them become a body, an animal or a face.

🪵 From the “Torso” Series — By Nagato Iwasaki in Japan 🇯🇵

The head bends forward, and the chest and shoulders are layered with flat, sea-worn pieces that sit like muscle. More driftwood waits on the shelves behind the figure. Nagato Iwasaki describes his process as “gathering bits of wood from here and there, like an insect building a nest.”

💡 Driftwood Fact: Iwasaki’s studio is at the southern tip of Yamanashi Prefecture, about 30 minutes by car from Suruga Bay. After a typhoon, he says, the beach there is always full of washed-up wood. He joins the pieces with wooden stakes instead of iron nails, so the figures are made of nothing but wood.

More: 10 Driftwood Sculptures

🔗 Follow Nagato Iwasaki on Instagram

💨 “You Blew Me Away 8” — By Penny Hardy in the UK 🇬🇧

Gears, rings and scraps of rusted steel hold the front of the body together, then scatter behind it as if a gust has caught them. Penny Hardy, a sculptor based in Devon, builds with found metal objects that are allowed to rust. The series is about the physical effect of strong emotions.

💡 Artist Fact: Hardy has worked as a sculptor since 1998. Before that, she trained in scientific illustration and worked as a freelance illustrator for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

More: You Blew Me Away 8 by Penny Hardy

🔗 Follow Penny Hardy on Instagram

🦅 Peregrine Falcon — By Bordalo II in Sintra, Portugal 🇵🇹

The falcon’s gray and blue feathers are made from plastic and other waste, and paint drips down the white wall around it. Bordalo II made it for SMAS de Sintra’s 75th anniversary in 2021, on the utility’s workshop buildings in Portela de Sintra. He describes the idea as an image of nature built from what destroys it.

💡 Bird Fact: A peregrine falcon can reach 320 km/h (about 200 mph). In Portugal the species is classed as vulnerable, threatened by building along the coast, and it nests on rocky cliffs.

More: Bordalo II Builds Animals From Trash (30 Photos)

🔗 Follow Bordalo II on Instagram

🌊 16th Avenue Tiled Steps — By Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher in San Francisco, USA 🇺🇸

Fish, shells and blue water cover the lower steps, and the mosaic swirls upward toward the sky. The 163 steps hold more than 2,000 handmade tiles and 75,000 fragments of tile, mirror and stained glass. The staircase climbs from Moraga Street between 15th and 16th Avenues in Golden Gate Heights.

💡 Neighborhood Fact: Neighbors spent two and a half years raising funds and lobbying the city before the steps were unveiled in August 2005. The names of more than 300 sponsors are woven into the sea-to-sky design.

🔗 Visit the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps website

🗡️ Knife Angel — By Alfie Bradley and the British Ironwork Centre, UK 🇬🇧

The wings look feathered, but every feather is a blade, and more blades cover the body below the smooth face and hands. Alfie Bradley built the 8-meter (27-foot) angel from more than 100,000 knives surrendered and collected in UK amnesties in 2015 and 2016. It travels the country as the National Monument Against Violence & Aggression.

💡 Knife Fact: The British Ironwork Centre built more than 200 knife banks and offered them to police forces across the country. Each blade was blunted and sterilized before Bradley could work with it, and some of the wing blades are inscribed with the names of loved ones lost by families who support the project.

🔗 Follow the British Ironwork Centre on Instagram

🦆 “Kumiankka” (Rubber Duck) — By Villu Jaanisoo in Tampere, Finland 🇫🇮

Black car tires loop and twist around each other to form the body, head and pointed tail, with orange autumn trees behind. Villu Jaanisoo, an Estonian-born sculptor and former professor of sculpture at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, made the duck, which stood about three meters (10 feet) tall.

💡 Tire Fact: The duck was finished in 2003, and its lifespan was estimated at about ten years. It lasted 17. By then time and sun had worn down the rubber, and in May 2020 it was removed from the yard of the Tampere Art Museum.

⛏️ A Miner’s Pickaxe in Tiles — By Invader in Potosí, Bolivia 🇧🇴

A black-and-white figure made of square ceramic tiles swings a pickaxe across a small yellow building on bare, rocky ground. Invader took the pose from the cover of The Clash’s London Calling, where Paul Simonon smashes his bass, and swapped the bass for a miner’s pickaxe.

💡 Altitude Fact: Invader has placed 53 mosaics in Potosí, one of the highest cities in the world. The first, POTI_01, went up on December 31, 2021, at about 4,000 meters (13,000 feet), and it was his 4,000th invader.

More: Space Invaders – Around the World

🔗 Follow Invader on Instagram

🪞 “Metalmorphosis” — By David Černý in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA 🇺🇸

A mirrored head rises from a pool, with a jet of water arcing from its mouth. David Černý built it from stacked stainless-steel pieces that turn independently in seven segments, so the face splits and reassembles. The kinetic fountain stands at Whitehall Corporate Center in Charlotte.

💡 Motion Fact: There are 40 steel pieces in all, and each segment can rotate a full 360 degrees. The head no longer spits water, but it started spinning again in September 2025.

🔗 Follow David Černý on Instagram

🥋 Kicking the Kegs — By Angus in Bristol, UK 🇬🇧

A fighter made of small ceramic tiles throws a flying kick, and a stack of real beer kegs seems to tumble away from the impact. His name is painted in white in the top-left corner.

💡 Artist Fact: Angus has no formal art training. He taught himself and works in an 8-bit, tongue-in-cheek style.

📸 Photo by Hannah Judah

🔗 Follow Angus on Instagram

✊ “Release” — By Marco Cianfanelli near Howick, South Africa 🇿🇦

Tall steel columns stand in rows on a brick platform, and from one spot on the path they line up into Nelson Mandela’s profile. Marco Cianfanelli made Release for the Nelson Mandela Capture Site near Howick, where Mandela was arrested in 1962. The portrait comes into focus from about 35 meters (115 feet) away.

💡 History Fact: The sculpture was unveiled on August 4, 2012, the eve of the 50th anniversary of Mandela’s arrest. There are 50 columns, one for each of those years, and the artist writes that they also suggest “the idea of many making the whole; of solidarity.”

🌈 “Sacré Blur” — By Heywood & Condie

Pointed church windows become the walls of a greenhouse, glowing with colored figures after dark. In Sacré Blur, Tony Heywood and Alison Condie give salvaged stained glass a new structure to light up.

This photograph shows the work during its time in London. It left its Porchester Place site in January 2024 and is now in a private collection.

🔗 Visit Heywood & Condie’s website