A ceremonial mace is supposed to look heavy. It communicates authority before anyone explains what it means. Lewis Prosser takes that very official visual language and runs it through a basketmaker’s workshop.1
In Civic Ceremonial, on view at the Senedd in Wales from 1 August to 29 October 2026, Prosser reimagines civic regalia using basketry and heritage metalworking. The clearest example still reads instantly as a ceremonial mace, except its head is a woven willow structure.1
That works because Prosser is not simply making sculptures that happen to look like baskets. His practice is built around heritage basketry, performance and public ritual. He calls himself an “absurdist basketmaker” and uses those skills to explore regional identity, cultural exchange and ceremony.2
Changing the material changes the object’s argument. Metal suggests permanence, wealth and institutional weight. Willow exposes fibres, joins and the time required to weave them. You can imagine the hands behind the object.
For makers, that is the useful trick here: you can question a function by changing the material while leaving the silhouette intact. Prosser preserves enough of the visual code for the object to remain legible, then swaps the part carrying much of its symbolic weight.
The Senedd describes the works as civic tools imagining a human-scale form of power rooted in community consensus rather than top-down authority.1 This is not a new fabrication technology. It is almost the opposite: an old craft used as a political prototyping tool.