CONCEPT

Cowgate is the birthplace of the city of Edinburgh, one of the first street: in the 16th century where the noble families and city councillors have their residences, then between the mid 18th and mid 20th centuries the Cowgate was a poor, often overcrowded slum area.

Arthur seat is the origin of the land: it was formed by an extinct volcano system of Carboniferous age (approximately 350 million years old).

Based on this simple informations I decided to link these two birthplaces and crated a volcano cave under the bridge. I recreated the impression of eruption with red light in the shape of the contours of the hill and smoke invading the vault (not on low level, so it is not dangerous for the cars) and going out reaching the road on top of it, encouraging people to go down and have a look at what is going on under it.

PROCESS

It has been the most difficult one to decide on an idea.

The first one was to project the image of the people walking under it in the other side and on the ceiling, giving the impression that you are everywhere, you could see everything: like when you are on top of Arthur’s seat with the panoramic vision of the city. The problem was that it wasn’t associating “over” and “under” the bridge and wasn’t related to its history and character.

The second idea was to have big screens retransmitting the image of the other vault of south bridge: it was related to the sorry happened in 1836, where five boys hunting for rabbits found a set of 17 miniature coffins containing small wooden figures in a cave on the crags of Arthur’s Seat. The purpose has remained a mystery ever since the discovery. The contemporary belief was that they were made for witchcraft, though more recently it has been suggested that they might be connected with the murders committed by Burke and Hare in 1828 (maybe some of them in Cowgate). I wanted to recreate the cave on Arthur seat with a serial killer atmosphere: you can observe everything, but no one can see you. I liked this idea but it wasn’t linking up and down, and might be difficult to understand.

On the same idea of screen I was thinking to install windows, retransmitting images of the other 6 bridges: I wanted people to have the illusion to be able to see ‘everything’ (recalling the panoramic vision on Arthur seat). It would have also give to opportunity to see them from other point of view (sky, floor...).

The final idea was to recreate the volcano cave, bringing the origin of the land and the origin of the city together. It is a more simple idea but with a huge theatrical character.