RETURN TO ARCHIVE
hoxa sound, 2001
Details
Installation Dimensions Variable.
2 x Video Projections
2 x Engraved steel sculptures
Photography: Alistair Peebles
DESCRIPTION
The work was produced as part of a project organised by The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness; The Constant Moment, which took place in locations across the Orkney Islands.
Hoxa Sound is a complex new series of works which explore how best to preserve the identity of the individual within the institutions of medicine, warfare and history itself. The often repeated but unsubstantiated story that the steel plate salvaged from the the scuttled German Fleet in Scapa Flow (which was forged in a pre-nuclear age) and is said to have been used in the manufacture of medical equiment and space instrumentation which measure radiation, was an important starting point for the work.
Two sculptural pieces, in the shape of small child’s right & left legs, are sited in each of two identical concrete Second World War search light posts which face each other across Hoxa Sound. The sculptures are made of solid steel, partially reconstituted from recycled Orkney marine scrap and etched with the decorative pattern adapted from a suit of Medieval German armour. The original plaster casts from which the steel pieces were molded were kindly lent by the family of a girl who was attending the National Centre for Orthotics & Prosthetics in Strathclyde University, Glasgow, to be fitted with the orthotic supports which enable her to walk.
A striking early 19th Century school house in South Ronaldsay is the temporary venue for the installation of two film pieces, shot from each of the searchlight posts. Thomisons Academy, which has been empty for around thirty years, is being redeveloped as a Centre dedicated to the Hudson's Bay Trading Company and William Tomison, a pioneer in the Company from whose bequest the Academy was built.
The costal defences are aging structures on cliff top sites and must be negotiated with great care. Visitors are responsible for their own safety and should repect the fundemental rules of the coutryside. Access to the site for the sculptural work has been arranged with the kind permission of land owners.
Pier Arts Centre Hoxa Sound infomation booklet.