10 interpretations of a big table

A huge table and chair have been erected on Hampstead Heath in London. It's an artwork called The Writer, by Italian Giancarlo Neri. But what does it mean? Here are 10 interpretations - add your own at the bottom.

1. It's about writers' block. Simon Gillespie, of the ROLLO gallery which arranged the installation, states: "For me, The Writer works on many different levels but succinctly, it summarises the pressure one can feel in front of a blank page."

2. It's about absurd self-deprecation. Poet Olivia Cole says: "[T]he desk looming ridiculously large, there's as much hopelessness as hopefulness and as much absurd self-deprecation as lyricism. Writers seem less appealing than the broken story of life interrupted."

3. It's just for effect. The London News Review says: "The chair is pushed into the table. The writer is not at his desk. The act of writing is not being done at this table and chair. Where is the writer? Presumably out with friends, or in bed with two prostitutes. Either way, neither loneliness nor writing is celebrated in this work. If anything, The Writer celebrates shirking. However, it is obvious that the primary response one has to The Writer has nothing to do with writing or not writing, it is simply 'cor, that's big'."

4. It's about creation. Francesca Gavin wrote in BBC Collective that it "is sharp, funny and fits perfectly with its surroundings", and that it plays with the ides of "the epic process of inspiration and something fundamental about creation". "This epicness is highlighted by the location. At the base of a large hill, resting in an alcove of trees, the sculpture doesn't impose itself on the Heath but slots into it. The grass and trees are transformed into an invisible giant's garden."

5. It glamorises being a writer, and will make writers feel how lucky they are. Author Deborah Moggach wrote in the Guardian: "Stewing away alone, writers are prone enough to both self-pity and delusions of importance. This will only encourage them. What about a monument to the ghastlier life of a call-centre operative? Not only would it give them some much-needed recognition, but would make writers realise how lucky they are not to have to do it."

6. It's just original. Hampstead Heath local Mel Barrett, 33, says: "'It is so original it is great. So many writers have lived in Hampstead that it is fitting that it is here. I think it works well that it is so large and surprising.'

7. It's about the unknown... perhaps sex? Poet Michael Rosen says: "[People] are going to wonder about what's on top? There's a lovely not-being-able-to-see-the-top about it, and of course, people will think about all sorts of activities and what might be going on there. After all we have a mile-high club, well, we might get a 30-foot high club."

8. It's a glimpse into a private world. Columnist Natasha Walter says it "manages to look as if something has been pulled out of a private place and into the public arena. The table and chair are domestic, vernacular objects recast into public art by a playful imagination."

9. It's about size. But, according to Carl, a commenter on the Punclox weblog: "It's not big. We are just small."

10. It's about loneliness. Giancarlo Neri, the artist himself, says: "I will say that The Writer was prompted by the idea of the writer's condition: that in order to write about people and life, they actually have to set themselves apart. Of course, much thought went into the look, the colour, the style, but the idea is that it should suggest nothing in particular. It's as ordinary as possible. I think of it as a stage set waiting for actors who never come. In that sense, it's interactive."

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Here is a selection of your comments. The debate is now closed.

in my honest opinion its just another example of how modern art is nothing more than a joke, the act of making a giant table requires no artistic skill or talent whatsoever and calling it art is not something that should be encouraged
Michael Morley, London, UK

I'm sure it's an effort to entice the BFG to visit.
Claire Turner, Leymen, France

So it's not an advert for a big new Ikea then?
Ray Lashley, Bristol, UK

Sometimes a giant chair and table is just a giant chair and table.
Neil Golightly, Manchester, UK

Deborah Mogach should have written "it glamorises being a waiter" - an exceptionally large waiter.
Gordon Greenall, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

It's about the waste in today's society. It screams waste on many levels. It wastes my time looking at it. It wastes a page on the BBC website with an article about it. It was a waste of money by whoever funded it, who could have got a better artist to produce a better work that does convey to the viewer the sense of being a writer. And a waste of time of the artist who created it, who could have been doing somethim more useful, like cleaning the fluff from his belly button, instead. When I look at it, I think, so what, Disney does overlarge furniture better.
Alan Addison, Newcastle, UK

To me the subtle, but eloquent solitude of a writer's desk is used very cleverly by the artist. The scale of the piece acts to demonstrate how in life, initial appearances of insignificance, represented by an everyday desk and chair, can be overwhelming in their enormity to others.
Russell Jones, Bristol

It's about pretentiousness. Writers elevates themselves above the common herd and talk down to their audiences because they think they're important and that their views should be heard above all. But when we look up we see that it's all empty rhetoric. Where better to put it than Hampstead?
Nick McDonnell, Nottingham

I run past it most days on the way to work and can't help thinking it's a big waste of space. What does it mean? I think it represents quite a lot of wood which could otherwise have been incorporated into something useful.
Iain, London

I think it is to remind us of when we were small children and played make-believe under the dining/kitchen table. I spent many happy hours pretending to be an explorer in a tent or repelling attacks from my kitchen table fort, please don't tell me I was the only one though! I can't wait to visit it, so if you see a big tablecloth appear on it one day, it's probably me inside.
Lynne Hand, Darmstadt, Germany

It means : When following the plans to build furniture for a dolls house, always check what scale the measurements are in BEFORE commencing construction.
Neil D, London

It's pop art. It means to be nothing but eye candy. Nothing wrong with candy though.
Mark D, Cambridge

It magnifies despair and emptiness, drawing the blood from your soul for that one split moment. Alternatively, it can also overwhelm you with its massive structure and its spirit which lurks behind that colossal shadow. Before you know it, you snap back into reality and you are astonished by how meaningful or meaningless life can be, depending on how you wish to depict it.
Kai Wei, Singapore