| 20,000 years ago, during the last great Ice Age, a boulder was carried by glacial ice from Borrowdale in Cumbria, and deposited in the clay basin on which Manchester is now built. During the 1940's this unusually large glacial erratic was discovered and excavated close to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester and then moved a short distance north where it was up righted and sited as a monument in the University of Manchester's Quadrangle. The boulder has remained quietly out of the way and undisturbed in it's new position, blending into the surrounding architecture.
Connecting the Whitworth Art Gallery and the University Quadrangle is a powerful line of energy (lay line), which extends northwards through the city centre and on to Borrowdale. This lay line travels directly underneath the 'Oxford Road Corridor' which now houses the UK's greatest concentration of universities.
With assistance from a Psycho-Geographer, Geomancers and an Earth Healer, the film explores and reveals the powerful influence that the boulder is having on the seat of learning and surrounding area.
The film celebrates the power of monument, and treads the fine line between truth, myth and the overwhelming density of institution.
Johnny Magee is programme leader on BA (Hons) Contemporary Film and Video and is teaching and researching in the School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University. His research interests are in considering whole countries within an 'institutional' context. Looking at how creativity itself is affected by unfamiliar language and dense surroundings when a range of artists are commissioned to work for confined periods of 3 months in: India, UK, Japan, China, Pakistan and Australia. | |
