Alex Malcolmson
Arctic Box
Mixed media
18 x 12 x 4 "
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In the Arctic Box I have made objects which relate to hunting / fishing. Top to bottom: Halibut Hook; Leister (fish spear); Knife; Harpoon Point; Arctic Char. The pieces are...
In the Arctic Box I have made objects which relate to hunting / fishing. Top to bottom: Halibut Hook; Leister (fish spear); Knife; Harpoon Point; Arctic Char. The pieces are perhaps likely to be associated with Inuit hunters these days as they were using these sorts of tools most recently but these were common all throughout the north at one time, including Scotland in the recent past. There is a photograph from 1948 of a man in the Western Isles using a Leister for catching fish. They would almost certainly have been used in Shetland. Relatives of the Arctic Char still survive in lochs there. Similar hunting tools have been dredged from the Dogger Bank too. For me, they are simply beautiful objects resonant of our ancestors, a different age and different way of life now locked in memory box. These motifs have been a bit of a recurrent theme and they have cropped up in a number of pieces. The tools are made from wood, metal (old iron nails), brass, twine and bone. In case anyone wonders, the bone is from repurposed ‘bone folders’ which are an essential tool for bookbinders, I buy them from Shepherds the paper and bookbinding supplier in Victoria. The writing slope is perhaps a reference to the Victorian explorers who collected and recorded ethnic artefacts for museums like the Pitt Rivers.