Exploded Van Tops Auction for Clacton Solar Project
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- Powell and Edelstyn are auctioning work from the past 15 years this Saturday, hoping to raise at least £250,000 for a community-led renewable power station in Clacton — Reform UK leader Nigel Farage's constituency.
- The headline lot is a sculpture made from a gold Ford Transit van stuffed with £1.2m in fake banknotes, which the artists blew up in London's Docklands in 2019 as the climax of their film "Bank Job"; the reconstituted Calder-like mobile once hung in Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum and could fetch around £100,000.
- Powell has contacted the V&A and the Arts Council hoping a public institution will buy the exploded van, but says she received "quite patronising replies."
- Edelstyn frames the Clacton project as a direct response to a DeSmog report finding Reform UK received more than £2.3m — 92% of party donations — from oil and gas interests and climate science deniers since December 2019.
- The couple previously helped build a community-owned solar power station on their London street in Waltham Forest, with more than 130 streets there signing up to replicate the model and another 50 across the UK.
- Energy Secretary Ed Miliband visited the pair two weeks ago, and the artists say their Power Station film has already influenced UK community energy policy.
- Funding is split: auction proceeds will bankroll the Clacton setup work and a documentary, while the solar installations themselves will be funded by issuing shares to roughly 20,000 high-net-worth investors in a community benefit society.
Why it matters: The auction is a direct attempt to fund community renewable infrastructure in the constituency of a party whose £2.3m in oil and gas donations — 92% of its funding, per DeSmog — makes it a deliberate target. The model already has policy traction: Ed Miliband visited the artists two weeks ago, and 130-plus Waltham Forest streets have signed up to replicate the solar co-op structure the couple pioneered.
