Project Background
The ideas, research and creative process behind Together We.
The starting point
In developing the artwork, Titchner’s starting point was the idea of circulation and how people and ideas move and come together.
This concept operates on multiple levels: it can describe a physical structure such as a transport network, a biological system such as the body’s circulatory system, or, given the station’s proximity to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, the ways ideas, research, and innovation evolve through collective endeavour.
For Titchner, circulation became both a metaphor and a structural principle, reflecting the constant movement of people through the station and the flow of knowledge within the surrounding biomedical community.
Inspiration from William Harvey
During his research, Titchner was led to the writings of 17th‑century Cambridge physician William Harvey (1578–1657), an alumnus of the University of Cambridge and the first known physician to describe the body’s circulatory system in detail.
Harvey’s work provided a historical and conceptual anchor for the project. Drawing on Harvey’s collected writings, Titchner isolated the use of the word together and examined how it was combined with verbs to describe processes of movement, mixture, and emergence.
This led him to gather phrases such as drawn together, mingled together, arise together, combine together, and unite together. These expressions became the foundation for the artwork’s text, which the artist expanded and refined to explore themes of collective action, shared experience, and human connection.
Developing the text
The word together was ultimately removed from the final text, leaving a sequence of verbs that imply different forms of coming together. The word itself appears only in the title rather than within the artwork.
The verbs are linked by the repeated use of and, suggesting an open‑ended, ongoing chain of possibilities – an accumulation rather than a conclusion. The resulting text can be understood as relating to different concepts of togetherness, whether social, physical, chemical, or biological, echoing the multiple systems of circulation that inspired the work.
Creating the artwork
Titchner’s art often combine short, slogan‑like phrases with vibrant, complex backgrounds. For this commission, however, he was interested in developing a longer, continuous sequence of text, something more meditative and expansive.
To support this shift, he chose to eliminate background elements in favour of clarity, legibility, high contrast, and visual impact.
Created in collaboration with London Mural Workshop, the artwork was painted by hand using a system of vinyl stencils. Titchner wanted to create an artwork that unfolds across the station’s architecture, revealing itself gradually as passengers move through the space.