A Shot in the Dark: The Gun Sculpture
Sandra Bromley and Wallis Kendal
Canadian War Museum
General Motors Courtyard
Image copyright theGunSculpture.com
"Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love—then, for the second time in the history of the world, men will have discovered fire." The words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin are one of three quotations, in German, French and English, that lead viewers slowly into the tent containing the five tonne sculpture.
Sawed-off shotguns, anti-tank and anti-personnel rockets, handguns of every possible make and description, semi-automatic weapons, machine and sub-machine guns, knives, mortars, zip guns, and antique firearms, including guns with flintlock mechanisms—all these went into the making of this sculpture. After being donated by police forces, the over 7,000 weapons were first de-activated by a plasma torch. Despite appearing functional, the torch destroys one side of the gun. Cut up and welded, the weapons metamorphose into a giant 3.5 x 2.5 x 3.0 metre block-like structure, constructed to appear like a prison cell.
But the sculpture's two creators, Sandra Bromley and Wallis Kendal, both based in Alberta, inadvertently have tapped into something else. With its dimensions and box-like shape—even though it's slightly rectangular and can be entered—it very much resembles a Borg cube. The cubes are the method of transport of "The Collective". (For non-Trekkers, the Borg is one of the species in the Stark Trek series. The ultimate anti-individualists, they are inter-connected to each other through bio-mechanical conduits. This both creates and perpetuates their collective consciousness. Their greeting of choice is, "You will be absorbed. Resistance is futile.")
It's an interesting reference for a piece all about violence, power and control and our relationship with it.
Being confronted by the sight of so MANY weapons for any one unused to it is quite an experience. While poring over the intricate patterns Bromely and Kendal have created with different gun parts and bullets, the details can trigger all manner of associations, from Bonnie and Clyde mythology to a brutal case of domestic abuse. Browning, Winchester, Colt—the names along with their logos, and various other types of engravings, some personal, cast something of an eerie spell. It's impossible not to wonder how many people are dead and under what circumstances from the use of these particular weapons.
The sculpture itself is complimented by a video about its making—the noise of which was fairly annoying and distracting—a massive blackboard for viewers' comments, and a wall covered with over a hundred photographs showing "victims of violence".
Each individual surely is more than simply the story of how he was killed, but from the accompanying few words you wouldn't think so. It's not as if the cue to live and be meaningful came with the sound of a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.
Broad generalizations—superficially linking domestic violence, wars, the holocaust and so on—can sometimes backfire, leading to oversimplification of the roots of violence, its workings and how it manifests itself.
With the Gun Sculpture, Kendal and Bromely have made a match.
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 2001
Sawed-off shotguns, anti-tank and anti-personnel rockets, handguns of every possible make and description, semi-automatic weapons, machine and sub-machine guns, knives, mortars, zip guns, and antique firearms, including guns with flintlock mechanisms—all these went into the making of this sculpture. After being donated by police forces, the over 7,000 weapons were first de-activated by a plasma torch. Despite appearing functional, the torch destroys one side of the gun. Cut up and welded, the weapons metamorphose into a giant 3.5 x 2.5 x 3.0 metre block-like structure, constructed to appear like a prison cell.
But the sculpture's two creators, Sandra Bromley and Wallis Kendal, both based in Alberta, inadvertently have tapped into something else. With its dimensions and box-like shape—even though it's slightly rectangular and can be entered—it very much resembles a Borg cube. The cubes are the method of transport of "The Collective". (For non-Trekkers, the Borg is one of the species in the Stark Trek series. The ultimate anti-individualists, they are inter-connected to each other through bio-mechanical conduits. This both creates and perpetuates their collective consciousness. Their greeting of choice is, "You will be absorbed. Resistance is futile.")
It's an interesting reference for a piece all about violence, power and control and our relationship with it.
Being confronted by the sight of so MANY weapons for any one unused to it is quite an experience. While poring over the intricate patterns Bromely and Kendal have created with different gun parts and bullets, the details can trigger all manner of associations, from Bonnie and Clyde mythology to a brutal case of domestic abuse. Browning, Winchester, Colt—the names along with their logos, and various other types of engravings, some personal, cast something of an eerie spell. It's impossible not to wonder how many people are dead and under what circumstances from the use of these particular weapons.
The sculpture itself is complimented by a video about its making—the noise of which was fairly annoying and distracting—a massive blackboard for viewers' comments, and a wall covered with over a hundred photographs showing "victims of violence".
Each individual surely is more than simply the story of how he was killed, but from the accompanying few words you wouldn't think so. It's not as if the cue to live and be meaningful came with the sound of a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.
Broad generalizations—superficially linking domestic violence, wars, the holocaust and so on—can sometimes backfire, leading to oversimplification of the roots of violence, its workings and how it manifests itself.
With the Gun Sculpture, Kendal and Bromely have made a match.
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 2001
