Towards a Glass Monument

Towards a glass monument meditates on processes of becoming. It consists of two stained glass window screens, each consisting of twenty lancets conceived for the North Wing of the Old Quad, and six plaque texts. Glass monument engages the early history of the Old Quad, and specifically a (lost) drawing by the artist Arthur Bartholomew (1833-1909): an extraordinary image of Mesozoic fern fronds fossilised in sandstone. This drawing was created in the North Wing itself, drawn under the eastern window of the Old Quad where Glass monument will be installed. Linking processes of transformation – across photosynthesis, geological formation, fossilisation, glass-making and drawing itself – Glass monument attempts to indirectly imply a profound and complex process of transformation: learning, the process of becoming so central to this site, and to the idea of a university