Alexis Parinas
There are so many seeds, so many stars (2024)
​10 September 2024 - 7 September 2025

There are so many seeds, so many stars is a new commission by Alexis Parinas, an artist working across moving image, printing, painting and installation. It was developed in collaboration with 230, Year 7 students from St Peter’s School, Huntington. Combining the students’ interest in film and storytelling, Parinas worked with them in 18 workshops, across an academic year.  They were invited to create new worlds together through storytelling before translating them into vivid, kaleidoscopic moving images by applying felt tips directly onto 35mm film.

In short, eight-frame films, the students depicted flowers blooming, plants growing and stars shooting across the night sky. Inspired by these animations and their themes of growth and renewal, Alexis created There are so many seeds, so many stars. Originally painted onto 35mm film, before being scaled to span the facade of Wysing’s New Block, the work begins with a vibrant sunrise. Flowers blossom in the golden fields of summertime and bare, winter branches are silhouetted against a quiet dusk before sunset falls and the cycle begins again. Zooming in and out of grassy landscapes, as well as skipping across the seasons, the work takes us through daily and yearly cycles. By reflecting on these natural rhythms,There are so many seeds, so many stars invites us to celebrate the beauty of everyday transitions, and our relationship to them, as they unfold around us and across the landscape.

Alexis Parinas lives and works in London. Alexis has presented work or led workshops at numerous arts organisations, schools, universities, and youth groups across the UK and internationally. Previous projects include Markets, Memories and Mangoes, Creative People and Places Hounslow, London; Film Diary NYC III, San Mei Gallery, London and Millennium Film Workshop, New York (all 2024); Analogue Short Film Screening, not/nowhere, London (2023) and Concrete Salon, Barbican Centre, London (2019). They are part of Syllabus VII, a collaboratively produced alternative learning programme developed by Wysing Arts Centre in partnership with Eastside Projects, Birmingham, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, PS2, Belfast, Spike Island, Bristol, TACO, Thamesmead, and Studio Voltaire, London.

The New Block Commission is an annual commission that engages directly with Wysing’s site and surrounding landscape. Marking a move away from indoor, exhibition-based projects, the opportunity invites artists to intervene in and re-make the facade of Wysing’s most prominent building.

Supported by Arts Council England and Art Fund with the John Armitage Charitable Trust.

Alexis Parinas, Process Image (2024). Image courtesy of the artist.

Pheo Cox, Conversation With Earth: A Daydreamer’s Map, 2024

Whilst on a young people’s placement at Wysing, artist Pheo Cox created ‘Conversation with Earth: A Daydreamer’s Map’. Pheo’s commission takes us on a journey through Wysing’s site, exploring the biodiverse landscape and the curiosities it’s home to.

The detailed, risograph printed map follows a personal journey reflecting on what nature can provide. It responds to sensory, factual and mythological ways of learning about plants, reminding us of the importance of our connection with nature. 

Through this map, Pheo calls upon us to get to know the earth a little better, to reconsider our relationship with it and to ponder what could happen if we made space to realise, notice, and listen. 

Each map includes a set of 4 postcards and a packet of wildflower seeds, inviting us to share in the joy of nature. 

By purchasing Cox’s edition, you’ll be supporting our Creative Youth Council. The Creative Youth Council is a calm and friendly safe space where young people aged 14-18 from all over Cambridgeshire can unleash their creativity and share it with people their own age. 

Click here to purchase.

Rafał Zajko | The New Block Commission

Corns and Calluses, 2024

Corns and Calluses is a new commission from artist Rafał Zajko that explores labour, land, and play. The bright blue hand is sprouting wheat: it is part-human and part-plant; the artist is imagining a future in which humans might exist in innovative, unexpected forms. Zajko is often influenced by Science-Fiction, and this work marries his interest in the future of our planet, with landscape, farming, and industry. Corns and Calluses prompts us to consider the possibilities of our planet’s evolution and our relationship to it.

The title refers to hard, painful areas of skin that can be caused by repetitive pressure. Zajko draws a parallel between the pressure on farmworkers’ bodies as they work, and the pressure on the land as it is cultivated by industrial farming that can be harmful to our planet.  

This work was produced alongside a new commission by Zajko at St Peter’s School, Huntingdon, which saw the artist collaborate with 270 Year 7 Students to create a work based around their desires for the future. A new series of sculptures now unfold throughout the school, with a major new artwork situated at the entrance.

Rafał Zajko is a polish artist based in London, UK. His work deals with issues around the industrial past exploring its environmental impact in relation to working class heritage and queer identities.

His sculptural practice incorporates many different materials and processes, including ceramics, ventilation systems, prosthetics, and performance to examine folklore, science fiction and queer technoscience. His work places an emphasis on industrial materials and the body’s relationship to technology, drawing from his own family history of working in fields and factories in Poland.

The New Block Commission is a new set of commissioning from Wysing Arts Centre. Supported by Arts Council England, Art Fund and the Henry Moore Foundation, The New Block Commission moves away from indoor, exhibition-based projects to a site-based approach that makes our work more visible.

Rafał Zajko | St Peter’s School

Rafał Zajko
We Were Here (Producers), 2023
Natural stone powder, bio resin, pigment  

This sculpture celebrates past, present and future students and their journey through St Peter’s School. The title refers to the way that schools create ‘producers’: students who leave traces in their school, and then go on to make an impact in the wider world after they leave. It is also a tribute to teachers, and their supervision of students’ growth. The colours match the St Peters School crest: red, blue, green, and yellow.

We Were Here is inspired by weekly workshops that Zajko held with Year 7 students, in 2022–3. Together, they explored the future by discussing what they wanted to change about the present, and what they wanted to keep. They designed time capsules and used Artificial Intelligence to explore the future of living, working, learning and farming in Huntingdon. 

The project references Huntingdon’s rural surroundings, the school’s proximity to factories and manufacturers, and the artist’s own family history of working in fields and factories in Poland, which resulted in his lifelong fascination with the body’s relationship to technology. 

Rafał Zajko and Isabel Curaming
Untitled, 2023
Portland stone powder, bio resin, pigment, earthenware

Under artist Rafał Zajko’s guidance, Year 7 and Year 10 students reimagined their school crest. Out of 40 crests created, Zajko selected Isabel Curaming’s work and integrated it into his sculpture.

Rafał Zajko and Greta Waring
Kernel, 2023
Portland stone powder, bio resin, pigment

This work is inspired by a drawing made by student Greta Waring in a workshop led by Rafał Zajko. In Waring’s drawing, the brain is represented by a flower that puts its roots down and allows knowledge to grow. The work is a bit like the school’s original logo, which was a tree with roots firmly anchored in soil.

Rafał Zajko
Attendance List I, 2023
Portland stone powder, bio resin, pigment

Students often leave chewing gum underneath desks. Zajko has embedded sculptures of gum chewed by Year 7 students into this artwork, permanently marking their attendance at St Peter’s School.

Rafał Zajko
Attendance List II, 2023
Portland stone powder, bio resin, pigment

Zajko cast students’ fingertips and incorporated them into this sculpture, to ensure that their time in the school is not forgotten – a very unique type of attendance list. 

All works are commissioned by Wysing Arts Centre and St Peter’s School, Huntingdon, with the support of the Henry Moore Foundation. 

Access information

The commission is located offsite at St Peter’s School, Huntingdon. Works are viewable via the carousel of photos on this page (click the image at the head of this page to open the carousel); the sculpture at the School’s entrance is visible from the road.

Artist Biography

Rafał Zajko is a polish artist based in London, UK. His work deals with issues around the industrial past exploring its environmental impact in relation to working class heritage and queer identities.

His sculptural practice incorporates diverse materials and processes, including ceramic, ventilation systems, prosthetics, and performance to examine folklore, science fiction and queer technoscience; placing emphasis on the industrial materials and processes that resonate with and honour his heritage.

Rafał Zajko (b. 1988, Białystok, Poland) lives and works in London, UK. He holds an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art, London, UK. Recent solo exhibitions include Amber Waves II, Galeria Fran Reus, Palma, Mallorca (2022). SLOT, Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK (2022), Song to the Siren, Cooke Latham Gallery, London (2022), Amber Waves at Public Gallery, London (2021), Resuscitation, Castor Projects, London, UK (2020); We Were Here/My Tu Bylismy, Galeria Im. Slendzinskich, Białystok, Poland (2019); Unputdownable, White Cubicle, London (2018).

He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including shows at London Open 2022, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, New Contemporaries 2021, South London Gallery, X Museum, Beijing, China (2020); Bold Tendencies, London, UK (2020); Grand Union, Birmingham (2019) Goswell Rd, Paris, France (2019); Ashes/Ashes, New York, USA (2019); EXILE, Vienna, Austria (2019); Vitrine, Basel, Switzerland (2019); Litost, Prague, Czech Republic (2018); Focal Point Gallery, Southend, UK (2016). 

About St Peter’s School

At St Peter’s we believe that, as educators, we can and must make a difference to the lives of the young people in our care. We work to ensure that the school enables our students to maximise their potential whatever their ability, background, culture or belief. We have high expectations and aspirations for all our students, and we work to prepare them fully for the future beyond our school, recognising, nurturing and celebrating individual skills and talents.

St Peter’s School are delighted to be able to offer all year 7 students the opportunity to take part in the Learn, Aspire, Exceed (LAE) Curriculum. The LAE curriculum has been specifically tailored for St Peter’s students to give them an opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills outside of the normal curriculum. The LAE curriculum is purely focused on inspiration which nurtures our ‘Learn, Aspire, Exceed’ philosophy, making learning a joy. The majority of the Wysing Art sessions will be part of the Learn Aspire Exceed Curriculum.

St Peter’s School believes that this extended curriculum gives opportunities for students to enhance their learning and the different job roles and responsibilities associated with more practical work. Research shows that participation in extra-curricular activities can positively impact on attainment, increase a pupil’s positive identification with school, and build self-confidence and resilience. Research also shows that children that do not have access to these opportunities fall behind, lack confidence, and fail to develop career aspirations.

This Wysing Art project will play a significant part in inspiring our future students to become engaged in extracurricular activities. 

This project will also impact our student leaders and our Art Ambassadors across all years by supporting the development of their leadership skills, and support further communication between the school and the community which is crucial for the development of the school in further years. 

StPetersHuntingdon.org