Circuit (2002)
Circuit (2002) in situ at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
Circuit (2002) tail of serpent forms a handle by which the viewer turns the sculpture to move around the column
Circuit (2002) in situ at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
Poetry commissioned from Martin Mooney.
Circuit (2002) detail of text devised to revolve around two corner columns
Integrated Artwork at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. This public sculpture installation is sited on several 7 meter high columns at the rotunda entrance to the main Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.
The snake the staff is the symbol of Western medicine and healing. Walsh’s bronze serpent is installed to wrap around the column located at the entrance to the hospital. Here viewers have the option to grasp this huge sculpture by the tail to physically move the artwork and actively impact the environment as they enter the hospital.
The head of the snake is on the level of the hospital restaurant on the first floor where it can be observed more closely, the 'tail' handle is activated by the viewer grabbing it from below.
The spiraling text was conceived for the corner ‘twinned’ columns, to engage the viewer to unravel a kind of textual puzzle, circumnavigating in order to read the poem. Walsh commissioned the poet Martin Mooney to write poetry that took a very strict form: six lines, of the same length, sandblasted into the surface of the concrete columns. The poem references the range of health care and other workers who contribute to healing in the Hospital.
Walsh’s intention was to make artworks that engages with the architecture and provokes the viewer to walk around, allowing an embodied 'reading' of the pieces, it being an interactive rather than a passive experience.