Digitalis Gargantua
Aimee Lax
Digitalis Gargantua
Aimee Lax
Reference
SAS0172_003
Year
2018
Dimensions (cm)
Height: 400
Length: 150
Depth: 150
Length: 150
Depth: 150
Materials
Porcelain, Steel, Stonware clay
Current Location
Stroud, Gloucestershire
Suitable Locations for the Work
- Indoors
- Floor-based
- Hung from ceiling
Background, history, commissioner of the work
This piece is the central to ‘Radioactive Boglach’, a body work made in response to my residency in 2017 at Cove Park, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The piece was jointly commissioned by RHS Chatsworth Flower show, as (temporarily) an outdoor piece. Later the work was adapted (as originally intended) for gallery purposes, funded by New Brewery Arts, Cirencester. The work later toured to Mission Gallery, Swansea, Wales. I would love the piece to return 'home' to Scotland.
Thematic/contextual information
During my residency at Cove Park, I was struck by the existence of nuclear warheads at Coulport. I began a fictional field study, of what might happen to the plants and organisms nearby, should they be exposed to long-term, low-level radiation. The resulting gargantuan foxglove references the efforts of Muriel Howorth, who began the Atomic Gardening Society, as part of the ‘Atoms for Peace’ movement of the 1950s and 60s. This enquiry debates our energy crisis, no energy source is fully 'green'.