Lake District slag heap could become landmark public art

Roger Hiorns’ and Tom Emerson’s proposed site at Millom on the west Cumbrian coast Photograph: Adamedia.

A century ago, Marcel Duchamp submitted a porcelain urinal to a New York exhibition and revolutionised art. If a urinal can be art, then why not a post-industrial slag heap?

The artist Roger Hiorns is channelling the spirit of Duchamp in his proposal for a landmark piece of public art in west Cumbria, on the Lake District coast of north-west England.