As a means of communicating a political message.Over the past two decades, Tomoaki Suzuki has employed a unique approach to creating his handcarved lime wood figures in a practice he describes as ‘taking photographs through sculpture’. Suzuki looks for potential models in the streets of his neighbourhood in Dalston, London, and identifies young people who have a distinctive style and who use fashion to express their individuality. He takes around three months to create each of the figures, which are scaled at one third of the model’s size. Beginning with a piece of wood, he carefully carves the sculpture before painting it to capture the different textures and tones of clothing and skin. During this process Suzuki usually spends many hours with his models in his studio. For the most recent work on display, Marisa, 2020, the model had to return to her home in Canada just before lockdown was imposed in the UK in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so he had to finish this sculpture working remotely, with Marisa posing in front of a computer. This year’s shared experience of keeping apart also found its way into Suzuki’s work, as he applied social distancing measures to the configuration of his sculptures in this space.