A RICH man’s folly or the biggest and best piece of land art in Scotland that will soon become an international attraction?
That’s the judgment that will be made by the public from today when Scotland’s new £1 million work of land art, the Crawick Multiverse, opens for business.
Operated by a charitable trust and paid for by the Duke of Buccleuch, who owns more of Scotland than any other private individual, there’s no doubt that the Crawick Multiverse on the site of a former open-cast coal mine near Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway is Scotland’s largest artwork.
Described as an “artland and public amenity – inspired by the themes of space, astronomy and cosmology,” at 55 acres the Multiverse is 10 times bigger than the late Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta.
Created by the renowned Charles Jencks, the American-born landscape architect and designer, Crawick Multiverse is the latest in a line of his works that include Northumberlandia south of the Border, Beijing Olympic Park’s Black Hole Terrace, and the Garden of Cosmic Speculation at Jencks’ home, Portrack House, near Dumfries.
The new landmark links the themes of space, astronomy and cosmology with a network of paths navigating features and landforms that represent the sun, universes, galaxies, comets, black holes and more.
It features tonnes of earth used to create landscapes that, in turn, display hundreds of the large boulders that were found on the site, and their similarity to ancient standing stones is not an accident.
Jencks said: “The Multiverse celebrates the surrounding Scottish countryside and its landmarks, looking outwards and back in time to present a difference view of the situation we are in. Its view is much more open than, say, that of a clockwork universe, and much more interesting – a different sort of landscape.
“The landscape had to be healed, it had to welcome the nearby communities of Sanquhar, Kelloholm and Kirkconnel, and help restore the locality both economically and ecologically – and so the Crawick Multiverse, a new version of an old scientific idea, was born
“Both audience and performers will pass through the Crawick Multiverse like a comet passing between the stars and planets, tails streaming away from the sun on a journey whose beginning and end are unknown.”
Always intended to be a tourist attraction to boost the local economy following the collapse of the coal industry, the Multiverse will hopefully become a major international destination, according to the Duke of Buccleuch.
He said: “Charles’ vision has transformed what was once a barren wasteland in need of love and attention into a visually stunning and intellectually stimulating landscape that will hopefully benefit the local area.
“We have yet to understand its full potential, and I think there will be huge interest in something that is clearly of international importance as an artwork – people will come from across the world to visit this unique attraction.”
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