Sculptor Sir Antony Gormley visits his famous Iron Men installation for 10-year anniversary

British sculptor Sir Antony Gormely returned Monday to Crosby, Liverpool to celebrate the tenth anniversary of one of his most famous works.

The work, Another Place, consists of 100 iron men, all positioned along a 3.2-km stretch of beach and all staring enigmatically out towards the sea.

The installation has over the last 10 years attracted millions of visitors and tourists from around the world to visit the 'iron men', originally designed to remain as a short-term work of art.

Their eventual destination was supposed to be New York, but despite controversy and opposition to their arrival on Crosby Beach, a campaign started to keep them there permanently.

Since the first statues arrived on the beach, Gormley has been commissioned to create similar works in other places around the world, from Manhattan and Florence to Japan.

Gormley, 64, also created one of Britain's best known works, the Angel of the North, in North East England.

In an interview to mark the anniversary, Gormley told local media how he had been struck from the moment he first arrived at Crosby by the robustness of the beach and the backdrop of a dockland landscape.

Gormley also recalled how when he ventured onto the wide beach he became stuck in the quicksands and was left wondering how deep he would go, describing the experience as "a kind of typical picture of a city dweller lost in the elements".

He cited the historic links and strong relationship between Liverpool Docks and the United States.

"The original piece was designed, in a way, as a meditation on emigration and what drove human beings constantly to expand westwards until finally they reached the Californian Pacific.

"Liverpool had a strong connection both with New York and America at large, and also the Caribbean in terms of the slave trade, but also the history indeed of bodies at sea, quite tragic history."

Gormley also likes the way visitors have made use of the iron men in different ways.

"The day after we finished the installation in Liverpool, every single work, through its wristband, had a rose in it with a tag on it saying Make Poverty History.

Each of the 100 iron men, 189 cm tall and each weighing 650 kg, are replicas of his own body. Endit