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To THE POWER OF TWELVE, 2018
Details
444 hand blown clear glass spheres, section of silk army surplus parachute stuffed with dried sphagnum moss.
Installation dimensions variable.
Location: Marble Hall
Photography: Keith Hunter
Video Documentary: click here (opens in new window)
Links
Artist's Newsletter article
Mount Stuart web site
Scotsman article
DESCRIPTION
This work, like others in the exhibition to The Power of Twelve, draws on the history of Mount Stuart as a WWI hospital and in particular the use of the central, Marble Hall as a General Ward. It consists of 3 different sizes of clear glass spheres, hand blown by scientific glass makers and contained inside a ‘boom’ made from the hem of an army-surplus parachute stuffed with dried sphagnum moss. The rest of the parachute hangs in the conservatory as the work Moss Depository. The sculpture is 1/12th the scale of a crater made by a series of mines exploded on the Messines Ridge, West Flanders, Belgium.
From to The Power of Twelve, 2018; new works drawing on Mount Stuart’s history as a naval hospital during World War One; to The Power of Twelve, The China Harvest, Wrong Right Hand, Moss Depository, Witness Boards II, Floating Groins/Fastened Groins, The Velocity of Drops.
research/process
During WWI, the Marble Hall, where to The Power of Twelve was sited, was designated the ‘Middle Ward’ and filled with 100 hospital beds.
The ‘pool’ of clear glass spheres centred in the Marble Hall measured just over 6m in diameter, equivalent to 1/12th the scale of a surviving crater, made by a series of mines exploded on the Messines Ridge, West Flanders, Belgium in 1917. This large crater, which is approximately 12m deep, is today filled with rainwater and preserved as a peace memorial, entitled the ‘Pool of Peace’.
The glass spheres forming the 'pool' are similar in form to historic glass fishing floats, which were also used as floats attached to anti-submarine booms during WWII. One such boom blocked the Clyde estuary at Bute during that conflict. Often referred to as ‘witch balls’, in a manner akin to the rule of ‘trial by water’ in that these heavy glass floats could not be made to sink. Superstitious sailors valued the talismanic powers of the witch balls in protecting their homes. According to folklore, witch balls would entice evil spirits away from homes or prevent witches from entering a room by betraying their lack of reflection.
The pink boom, made from parachute silk is filled with dried sphagnum moss; the woods around Mount Stuart are richly carpeted in a wide variety of mosses. Millions of wound dressings made from Sphagnum moss were used during World War I. Dried Sphagnum can absorb up to twenty times its own volume of liquids, such as blood, pus, or antiseptic solution. It promotes antisepsis and was thus superior to inert cotton wool dressings, the raw material for which was expensive and increasingly being commandeered for the manufacture of explosives.
