Madeleine Ruggi’s Soft Landing exhibition at the Palmer Gallery (Photo: Bridgestone Bulldog)
Bridgestone’s Bulldog retreading plant in Lincolnshire has supplied various tyre products as artistic materials for the London-based artist Madeleine Ruggi’s latest exhibition, Soft Landing. Ruggi interpreted the sights, sounds and materials of Bridgestone’s Bulldog retread plant in Bourne to create the pieces for the Palmer Gallery show, which will transfer to London’s Frieze Art Fair in October. The exhibition includes a 44-minute immersive sound sculpture titled Distress Purchase, two wall-based sculptures, and a print, made using materials sourced from the plant including retread rubber and some original audio recordings taken on-site.
Ruggi visited the Bulldog factory in 2024 for a tour with the team, including plant manager Dan Edwards. Inspired by the textures, machinery and conversations she encountered, she left with lengths of tread rubber, hours of field recordings, and a fresh artistic vision.
“The manufacturing environments I visit bring to my attention fascinating materials that are often taken for granted but which crucially underpin modern life; materials such as rubber tyre tread or industrial hardware. These become part of the works I create, and I invite others to notice them too,” she said.
“Visiting the factory and meeting the Bridgestone team in person gave me valuable insight into the detail behind production processes, the highly skilled labour that goes into creating such products, and how remarkably sculptural the tread can be.”
Madeleine Ruggi’s Soft Landing exhibition at the Palmer Gallery (Photo: Bridgestone Bulldog)
Ruggi’s work explores unseen infrastructures behind global trade networks, from cargo-ships to lorry-based haulage systems, bringing a new perspective to industrial settings and their place in modern society.
Andy Mathias, Bridgestone’s head of marketing, said: “We’ve always believed in the beauty of our retread process, but never quite as literally as this. To see our products interpreted in such a way is hugely rewarding, and something we have never come across before. This is the first time Bridgestone’s Bulldog retread materials have featured in a public art installation, marking a unique collaboration and one we’ve been extremely impressed by.”
Soft Landing is free to attend and will be displayed again in London in October during Frieze Art Fair week, with more details to be announced soon.
For more information about the tyre exhibit and Ruggi’s work, visit her website or the Palmer Gallery’s exhibition site.
