Suspended Animation
Flint, stainless steel wire, salt
When we were children finding a stone with a hole in it was always considered to be good luck. Ancient civilisations believed that stones with holes in them possessed healing properties. The hole in each stone has been created naturally through erosion over millions of years, and through this is threaded the wire which suspends it just above the floor.
In this work, which is referred to as a ‘suspended animation’, there is an inferred connection between humanity and nature. The shape of the sculpture seems to follow the contours of a strange column comprising varying numbers of vertebrae, found bereft of flesh…a pile of dead stones. On a molecular level, stones and bones have many properties in common, and the perception of a stone being a ‘dead’ object, is challenged here, as the lack of friction in the wire suspending the stones allows their movement within a slightest air current. First exhibited in London at the Space Now exhibition 2008. A large version comprised of 110 stones was commissioned and exhibited at the 2010 Busan Biennal, South Korea.