Andy Goldsworthy
In: Time Machine: Anciet Egypt and Contemporary Art. Edited by James Putnam and W. Vivian Davies. Published by the Trustees of the British Museum and the Institute of International Visual Arts, 1994, p. 46.
It is difficult to deal with a room containing fragments from such a rich culture. If I were to make something self-consciously Egyptian there would be a danger of it being superficial. I also wanted to avoid using the room as a library and making too literal an interpretation. I have also felt this response when working in a country with a strong cultural tradition. In the Arctic, Australia and Japan I responded first to the land, the place. It is not that I am avoiding a cultural exchange, but feel this should come through the making.
My first response to the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery was of sand. Sand is somewhere between stone and earth. It can be compressed hard and yet it can become fluid. It has a sense of strength, fragility and movement. The work would flow through the room - touching the sculptures and incorporating them into its form to give a feeling of the underlying geological and cultural energies that flow through the sculptures. I want to think of the landscape and the life from where they came.
The project was initially turned down because it would have restricted access to the room. James Putnam contacted me later and suggested that we make the work for a day, photograph it, then remove it, to be represented in the exhibitions as a memory. I found this a fascinating idea and one that would make the work stronger. That something was there, but has gone, touches on the relationship between an object and its origin. To think beyond the object to what we cannot see.
I have also made works for the sarcophagi. I initially responded to them as stone containers offering protection to objects inside. A work made with leaves is a celebration of growth, yet cannot work without expressing some anticipation of death, in a way that understands that death is a part of growth.
In some ways I wanted to use familiar forms, works that have appeared already, so that the place will draw out new meanings. It is interesting that all the forms are the most stylised that I work with. In different places I have felt uncomfortable about using these forms, because they have the feeling of design. Yet the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery, with its strong element of stylisation and design, will I think make them work differently. It makes them more appropriate. The saracophagi are not just containers of death, they are containers of life, in that out of death comes life.