2016 Pathways

In 2016 an opportunity presented itself for a series of the large geometric figures to be assembled together. This juxtaposition allowed the figures to mark points in space, and to play with the interactions between works.

The Stuart Residence Halls Council, a group associated since 1941 with the University of Otago in Dunedin, commissioned a large work for the campus to celebrate their 75^th anniversary. The work was installed at the junction of Castle Walk and Union Walk, where hundreds of pedestrians travel daily, students traversing as they shift from one class to another.

The bronze figures, enlarged and abstracted re-enactments of people sharing the crossroad, are distributed in a seemingly random configuration, much as the walkers might assume, and with the same variations of posture and gesture. Their placement forces those passing by to interact with the works while they navigate around them.

Uniting the figures is a large relief cross with a lighting strip mounted into the ground. It marks the intersection with a giant ‘X’ and evokes the St Andrew’s cross, the national emblem of Scotland. The panels of the cross are embellished with modelling – icons of Otago (with the historic railway building represented), the area’s flora and fauna, and University motto’s – giving scope for discovery when moving across the area.

But it is the figures towering across the campus grounds that give the artwork presence, assemblages of geometric forms perceived as people.