Breaking Ground (2006)

David Robinson

Westbury Lane, 9833 Keefer Ave.

Area: City Centre
Location: Located on Keefer Ave. west of No. 4 Rd.

Materials: Cement and bronze.

Program: Private
Ownership: Civic
Sponsored By: Polygon Development Ltd.

Description of Work

A concrete sculpture of a life-size kneeling man digging on top of a mound.

Artist Statement

This artwork trades on the ancient, pan-cultural mythic themes of humankind as beings born-of-the-earth. From the divinely formed clay of the biblical genesis, to the story of the Haida emerging from a clamshell in the sand, myths of human origin in the earth abound. By their ubiquity and repetition, these myths express that human culture is an engineered state of separation from that beginning-and-end that is the earth. By depicting the human figure as if earth-incarnate ‘Breaking Ground’ partakes of an ancient aesthetic that poses the question ‘How would it be if we were to see ourselves as such?’