|
Ballast: bringing the stones home A solo exhibition of sculpture at the National Museum of Scotland.
Exhibition Catalogue Click Here for the full exhibition catalogue in Adobe pdf format (2 Mbytes) Synopsis The stone sculptures in John Edgar’s exhibition Ballast explore the experience of the emigrant: the leaving of a homeland, the voyage through unknown seas, the arrival in a new land. What ballast kept them afloat on the journey and brought them safely to a new shore half a world away? And in 2009, the Year of the Homecoming, how are their descendants to find a way back to their heritage? Using stone that he collected in 2005 from various historic quarries in Scotland, the New Zealand artist has made sculptures that are based on the land and the flag, the compass, trig stations and survey markers, and which reference voyages and journeys, arrivals and departures. This exhibition celebrates in stone the strong culture that is common to Scotland and New Zealand. |