The Rising Tide, the name of the sculpture of Giant water horses that you can see in the photos, created by the artist Jason deCaires Taylor who was commissioned by Totally Thames in conjunction with the month long celebration of the River Thames in London’s history.

As you can see the sculpture is interesting as it interacts with the water. When the tide is high, the four riders are slowly submerged into water and are completely engulfed by it. And vice versa, when the tide is low, they slowly emerge from the river and can be seen standing on the bank of the River Thames. The location is of course very powerful as you can see the Parliament, the Palace of Westminster in the background where decisions are taken on environmental matters.

The artist tried to convey a message about the global warming and how actions are going to impact the environment. If nothing is done, we will be left helpless when facing the nature.

“This piece is about fossil fuels, which way we’re heading, and where our future lies. The initial brief for the project was that it had to, in some way, work with the tide. It’s about how fragile humans are, and how powerless they are in the wider scheme of things. As the river rises, there’s this feeling of isolation and lack of power.”

There are four white horses with four riders on top of them. Two of them are grown men who represent the businessmen and politicians and two are children who represent the new generation and hope for new vision and different actions.

“The postures of the businessmen show a kind of denial. Our climate is in crisis, we’re losing huge swathes of our environment, and people don’t tend to be really fully engaging with it. There’s so much denial going on. So those characters represent that. But there’s also a sign of optimism, in the children, who are able to inflict change. In Westminster, behind the sculptures, they’re allowing more fracking and we’re now going to the Antarctic to drill more, and it’s just not the right way to go. It’s a very powerful image – a politician, on a horse, with the rising tide surrounding him.”

The scultpures are best accessed from the Vauxhall Bridge on the south bank of the river Thames and can be seen at approximately these times this September:
Friday 25 - 7am
Saturday 26 - 7.30am
Sunday 27 - 8.45am
Monday 28 - 9.45am
Tuesday 29 - 10.30am
Wednesday 30 - 11.15am

Quotes from the artist are taken from The Guardian's article.