"Another Place consists of 100 cast-iron, life-size figures spread out along three kilometers of the foreshore, stretching almost one kilometre out to sea. Contractors have spent three weeks lifting the figures into place and driving them into the beach on the-metre-high foundation piles.

The figures, each one weighing 650 kilos, are made from casts of the artist's own body and are shown at different stages of rising out of the sand, all of them looking out to sea, staring at the horizon in silent expectation. The work is seen as a poetic response to the individual and universal sentiments associated with emigration - sadness at leaving, but the hope of a new future in another place.The artwork is being exhibited in the UK for the first time. It has been previously been seen in Cruxhaven in Germany, Stavanger in Norway and De Panne in Belgium. It is expected to move to New York following its installation in South Sefton which ends in November 2006.

(However, thanks to a spirited campaign by local people, Another Place has become a permanent feature on Crosby beach!)

Visitors will experience the work in a different way depending on the state of the tide, the weather condition and the rime of day they are visiting. At particularly high tides all the figures will be submerged.

According to Antony Gormley Another Place harnesses the ebb and flow of the tide to explore man's relationship with nature. He explained: " The coast is a good place to do this- here time is tested by tide, architecture by the elements and the prevalence of sky seems to question the earth's substance. In this work human life is tested against planetary time. The sculpture exposes to light and time the nakedness of a particular and peculiar body. It is no hero, no ideal, just the industry reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing the horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufacturing things around the planet."

The photographer writes, "I grew up in Crosby and this beach was one of my favourite playgrounds. Back then, very much more shipping passed close by en route for the docks of Liverpool and the beach was littered with their flotsam and jetsam, not to mention a generous coating of filthy oil- we kids were constantly in trouble for coming home covered in the stuff. The beach also extended much further north in my childhood- construction of the modern extension to the docks known as the Seaforth Container Terminal- visible in the background of a couple of these pictures- was commenced when I was a pupil at Waterloo Grammar School, just down the road. Prior to that, that part was a great area of rolling sand dunes littered with pyramid-shaped 'tank traps' (seen in this lovely old photograph) and pill boxes - leftovers from the war- and a great playground for us!

We queued up for the opening of Crosby Swimming Baths next to the beach and subsequently went there often. This, I noticed, has since been replaced by a dramatic new building which may be seen in the background in a few of these images.

One of the few blessings of the radical decline in the trade to the Port of Liverpool is that Crosby beach, as myself and my family (some of who where visiting here from their home in Australia) encountered it when we first came to see Another Place, is that it is very cleaner than I remember it. Wonderful, too, to see so many visitors from all over the world, drawn here by Anthony Gormley's figures, enjoying it too.

I love this place and I love the installation that now graces it. But, then, Crosby beach was always 'another place' for me!"