Irish history & Aotearoa
- Spirals
- Spiral table
Prototype spiral table, steel, October 2011
This design is my reworking of the triple spiral which appears in many heritage sites, including at Newgrange, a neolithic passage tomb built around 3200 BC in Ireland. Humans are thought to have been in Ireland for ~10 000 years, leaving a vast archaelogical heritage.
I'm looking to understand little bits of this history at a time and bring them into contemporary New Zealand visual culture.
As someone who was born and always lived in New Zealand, I've had a lot of exposure to our colonial history - New Zealand from around 1800 until now - a pretty short timeframe. I also feel as if I know more about others cultural heritage than I do my own (English, Irish & Scottish).
My buttons, painted with native plants from the UK.
These plants were in Britain when it separated from the rest of Europe's landmass around 5000BC.
Clockwise from top right: maidenhair spleenwort, yew, fern, mistletoe, elm, waterlily; middle: buttercup.
The image on the right is of the inside of one of the stone houses at Skara Brae in Orkney, North Scotland.
Skara Brae is a large stone-built Neolithic settlement. It consists of ten clustered houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BC-2500 BC.