This afternoon, work was under way to install this huge and intriguing sculpture on Calton Hill.
Emii Alrai’s Guardian will remain in place for the duration of the Edinburgh Art Festival (14–30 August).
She describes it as exploring the ‘cultural power and contested political histories of archaeological ruins’.
Drawing on her British-Iraqi heritage, she says it is inspired by the forms of ancient Sumerian Lamassu.
[Image: Lamassu from Dur-Sharrukin. University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Syrian limestone Neo-Assyrian Period (c. 721–705 BCE). Wikimedia Commons.]
The EAF catalogue says, ‘The work is built upon and ruptured into ghostly fragments, proposing a monument that acknowledges fracture, and reimagines how the past is held in the present.’
In this historic city of culture and learning, it will be interesting to see how long it survives without a traffic cone.
Topics
Location
