Hydra & Kali

The first sculpture installed at Greenwich Peninsula from Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable exhibition is Hydra & Kali – a 17-foot-high sculpture depicting the Hindu goddess fighting a huge, many-headed serpent. 

The marriage of a many-limbed woman and seven-headed snake was conceivably informed by a motif on the east frieze of the Altar of Zeus at Pergamon (late second century BCE), in which the goddess Hecate is shown with three faces and six arms, wielding a torch, sword and spear, in battle against a snake-tailed giant. 

You can find Hydra and Kali along The Tide and River Thames.