This stop brings you to a monumental sculpture in the middle of the exhibition space. This is called the ‘Activation Sculpture’. If you are facing the QR code, it will be behind you.
The ‘Activation Sculpture’ is about two metres tall and stands on a circular brown cork mat about five metres in diameter. Rising from its centre are four cupped hands that appear to be praying up towards the ceiling. They are a pale purple colour, their petal-like shapes clustered like a flower bud.
The large sculptural hands have tiny holes in them which emit quiet audio. These are extracts from the participants Rudy Loewe worked with in a series of workshops during the development of the exhibition. You are invited to embrace the sculpture or put your ear up to it to listen.
Spreading from the base of the sculpture are four snaking roots painted in the same pale purple as the hands, which taper towards the edges of the cork mat.
This sculpture has two states. You will most likely be encountering it in its closed position, meaning that the hands are clasped together, concealing what is contained within it.
Once a month, the sculpture ‘activates’, meaning the hands unfold to reveal at their centre a circular table with a blue glass top. Inside this the artist has painted an image of a tinder fungus, a plant used to carry fires. This is surrounded by sprigs of dried plants: damiana, angelica and chaparral.
When activated, the large sculpted hands rest on the cork mat. They are cushioned inside, creating a comfortable space for a small group of people to sit and gather for events that Loewe will convene with collaborators such as writer and artist Camille Sapara Barton, about themes such as grief, healing and collective dreaming.
The tactile symbol for this work – which you are invited to touch – is on an angled label, on the wall behind you when you are facing the sculpture. It is made up of one long line that swoops and swirls to create a serpentine shape with four loops in it. At each end of this line is a thick curve, like the head of an arrow if it were a soft arch instead of a sharp point.
Next to the tactile symbol is an invitation text by Rudy Loewe, which they will now read for you:
“Here, a place to dream
Of new possibilities
For community care structures
Unforeseen
Held in the loving touch
Of all those known and unknown
Who have buoyed us/you
Through the weight
Of living
Like hands that have carried
Us to new ground
Across unsteady waves
So we might
Root and grow
Into elderships
Neverseen
Lovingly whisper
In many tongues
You are safe now
You are here
You are here
You are here
“The tactile element for the ‘Activation Sculpture’ is about what happens when people come together in ordinary and sacred ways, and the possibilities that emerge from these connections.”
This is the end of track 8. If you are facing the QR code, then the tactile path continues to your left towards the final work in the exhibition.