Bury
As If I Were A River has been produced around the key motif of this exhibition - the river. The ethos of this public art commission is to use art as a tool to enable the public to interpret their landscape and have the confidence to explore their environment.
- Water Wheel: The materials are painted steel and stone. This sculpture marks the entrance to Burrs Country Park, once the site of a large cotton mill. The work, half immersed in masonry, at first glance might appear to be an uncovered relic of the huge waterwheels which originally powered the industry of the Irwell Valley. The wheel symbolises the process of constant change, the changing of a river into an industrial site and its change back into countryside again.
- Stone Cycle: Working on site gave the artist an understanding of the place, the passing of time, people, industry the reinventing of the area; this is represented in the broken circular layout of the sculpture. Like the site the stones had a previous life, originally quarried and cut for use as a bridge. Under the 100 years of industrial grime the artist discovered marks made by the original masons. Carved symbols were added to these marks, clues to long forgotten stories.
- Picnic Area: This sculpture is a representation of a human scale rat trap rendered in stainless steel with the words picnic area inscribed upon its plate. Sited in the corner of two water ways, a canal and a tributary that once fed the cotton mill, now all that remains of a bygone industrial age.
Fryer's sculpture is a wry comment on this hidden history and the site's current use as a country park. By utilising the words 'picnic area' the artists is encouraging the visitor to question whether the art work is a public amenity or tourist trap.
Read more about this topic: Irwell Sculpture Trail
Famous quotes containing the word bury:
“Illustrious examples engross, prejudice, and intimidate. They engross our attention, and so prevent a due inspection of ourselves; they prejudice our judgment in favour of their abilities, and so lessen the sense of our own; and they intimidate us with the splendour of their renown, and thus under diffidence bury our strength.”
—Edward Young (1683–1765)
“In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.”
—Croesus (d. c. 560 B.C.)
“But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)