Aberdeen's Rock Festival!

Today I stumbled upon a leaflet promoting this latest (not rock!) festival. So it would seem that Omart has its fingers on the pulse - perhaps I will contact the festival curator and alert her to the efforts we are making to respect and celebrate aspects of the local stone working traditions.

Here is some text from the brochure.

'Aberdeen has a unique cityscape created over 200 years of using granite for building, sculpture and monuments. Aberdonians sculpted the city itself out of the local stone and wherever we’re from we know our home as the Granite City.

This May, we invite you to join us in celebrating everything granite – from its ancient geological origins and the industries which thrived on it, to the superb architecture we see every day. We want to give Aberdonians old and new a chance to talk about granite and hope to make the festival a regular event.

We have a full programme of talks, walks and events which offers something for everyone. We look forward to seeing you soon!'

Information about the programme of events can be found at the Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum Website, www.aagm.co.uk

I am also struck that the image chosen to grace the front of the brochure is remarkably similar to a documentation shot from former Turner Prize winning artist Simon Starling's show at Tate St Ives, Cornwall. I didn't have time to catch this show before travelling north, even though I had a preview ticket, but was very interested to hear that Starling was continuing to explore the 'excavation and transformation of the material world', exemplified in the work

"The Long Ton", 2009, described as sculpture featuring two rough-cut white lumps of marble suspended in space. The larger of the two stones, an import from China weighing one ton, is counterbalanced by approximately 250 kg of Italian marble thanks to a 4:1 ratio pulley system that allows the two stones to sit in perfect equilibrium. On closer inspection it is clear that the two stones have exactly the same form, the Italian stone having been precision laser-cut to exactly the same, although reduced, specifications as the larger Chinese stone. Despite its long voyage to Europe, the Chinese marble has a similar market value to the European stone one-quarter its weight.

Simon Starling image from www.artcornwall.org