Sleeping Beauty: Watching the Mountain

Abstract

Site-specific sculpture requires a relationship to, and acknowledgement of, the environment in which it is placed. This is not always the case and works often become something to move around rather than engage with. This research investigates, through the use of functional objects within public spaces, issues of culture and history in relation to materiality.

Sleeping Beauty: Watching the Mountain is a large-scale, site-specific sculpture consisting of a text in Mandarin and English, a desk and two seats, created from bronze and white and black marble. Situated in the historically significant Da Guan Park, Kunming, China, surrounded by a mountain range, the sculpture’s philosophical text alternatively reads as a dialogue between man and nature, or between man and man (in English and Mandarin).

The 2005 sculpture commissioned by the Municipal Government of Kunming and the Yunnan Art Institute, Kunming, China, resulted in the permanent work: Sleeping Beauty: Watching the Mountain, situated in the historic, Da Guan Park, in Kunming. The work was reviewed by Editor, ‘Living’, Da Guan Weekly, Kunming, China, 18 May 2005 and was part of ‘China-Kunming, the First International Sculpture Symposium, Kunming International Sculpture Festival, Kunming, China’.