Engineer Henry
Fagan and Partners |
spiral vertical
perspective |
stainless steel
arms |
| The
idea of the passage of time and technological development can be represented
through water in sheets or strands flowing over the glass discs that contain
minerals and elements from specific geological sites in South Africa’s
mineral history – for example the gold mines of Johannesburg, diamond
gravel from the Kimberley Big Hole, sand from excavations along the Western
Cape Coast – which have been fired and fused into the glass. The proposed
sculpture is a celebration of our rich mineral resources, an acknowledgment
of the people who wrestle them from the ground, and the role played by technology
in the processing of these minerals into elements that we use in everyday
life, as well as in advancing our technological research and development.
In the world of visual arts, minerals are revered as the base of many pigments,
and offer the most spectacular colour range when fused with hot molten glass;
copper greens, copper reds, cobalt blues, iron reds, chrome yellows. |
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SCULPTURE:
WATER FLOWING OVER MINERAL HISTORY
The sculpture would be constructed using 3 primary elements:
· A fountain with a contemplation pool
· Glass discs molten with materials from Africa’s geological,
mineral history
· A stainless steel welded 'spiral' supporting structure
The passage of our mineral history will be traced in the following minerals
in glass worked into recycled plate glass here possible and hot fused
with diamondiferous materials and sands. Lead and copper sheet, wire,
metal oxides and compounds , sands from
Kimberley near the Big Hole: Kimberlite blue ground, porrel (boiled) and
yellow ground Red sand, gold mine dust, with cyanide and arsenic, Cape
Town: Kaolin, West Coast and Kalahari sands.
The
metal oxides are Titanium dioxide, Copper, Manganese, Magnesium, Nickel,
Lead letharge, Lead carbonate, Lead plate, solder, Cobalt, Potash, Paper
ash (old love letters), Zinc, Gold, Platinum, Valium, Vanadium, Copper
wire, Cadmium, Iron oxide, Ochres, Graphite, Rutile and Calcium Carbonate.
Materials
and construction Specifications
· The stainless steel structure spirals with 7 support
arms that decrease in scale and length from 1, 2 metres to 300mm long.
· As the sculpture increases in height, so do the size of the discs
decrease from 550mm to 300mm in diameter as they reach the tip of the
2800mm structure.
The spiral twists in a clockwise direction to refer to the passing of
time.
· Various minerals, sands, wires etc will be fused into discs approximately
20 cm thick in a hot glass process. (See photo of glass samples in the
presentation - the glass discs have been pre-drilled to facilitate nuts
and bolts for the support).
· Taps with washers bolt the glass in place but also control the
amount of water that is released onto each layer of history and the ’flow’
of the entire fountain of our lives.
· The discs would be set in a diagonal half spiralling metal 'ladder'
with the past at the highest point and minerals from the present at the
bottom and submerged just under the surface of the water.
· The pool will be fitted with a water fountain that flows from
3 metres down over the glass discs.
· The mosaic pool with diamond gravels and fused glass elements.
· The cement rim of the pool will also function as a bench so that
visitors can sit and 'contemplate' with the cool water on a hot day. The
surface of the cement rim/ bench will be inlaid with fused glass elements.
· This sculpture will be constructed from annealed and sandblasted
steel elements.
· If the sculpture is lit at night the past would be lit by a red
light and the future lit by white light.
· The sculpture would be 3 meters high and the pool approx 4,5
metres in circumference. The metal and glass central spiral structure
would be 1 metre in diameter at the top and 1,8 metres at the bottom |
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