The piece makes specific reference to ‘Equivalent VIII’ by Carl Andre. Andre used commercially available firebricks; I wanted to infect the rigour and austerity of Andre’s minimalism with something else.
The 120 blocks are individually hand cast and vitally, the concrete was mixed using water specially collected from rivers around the country. (Nith, Tweed, Carron, Forth, Clyde, Tay, Earn, Tilt, Spey, Ness, Coe, Don, Deveron, Thurso).
The blocks are imbued with something of the landscape, previously flowing water stilled and transformed. The water was the catalyst in a reaction, preserving as it solidified, traces of the forming material; the timber of the shuttering, itself formed by the action of channelling water (the growth of trees driven by transpiration).
I think of the sculpture as a physical silence (if we can use John Cage’s 4’33” as our definition of silence).