Memory is Creation Without End

by Kimio Tsuchiya

Sydney Arta life, 2004-07 Interloop Lloyd Rees Memory is Creation Without End Mermer Waiskeder (Stories of the Moving Tide) Table of Love Tank Stream Fountain Wishing Well Fountain

This spiral of sandstone blocks embedded into the Tarpeian Way consists of relics from demolished buildings and structures such as the Pyrmont Bridge. Each piece of stone, carved by stone-masons long ago, now darkened with age, testifies to their lost function and to the loss of those old buildings in the collective memory.

Source: Memory is Creation Without End by Kimio Tsuchiya, City of Sydney¹

This massive work titled “Memory is Creation Without End” by the Japanese artist Kimio Tsuchiya (is one of Japan’s most eminent and active artists). He has an international reputation and whose body of work employ a diversity of forms, from used building material and consumer goods, to natural objects like driftwood and stones.

These massive sandstone blocks are embedded into the earth of the Tarpeian Way, adjacent to Macquarie Street. If you were not aware that this was a sculptural work, you could easily think that maybe they were being restored or awaiting a new home, or just discarded, like gravestones in a cemetery.

In this work by Kimio Tsuchiya, he invokes different feelings from viewers, for some a sadness and others amazement, using relics from demolished buildings, such as the Pyrmont Bridge. These carved and embellished pieces are like memories, created by stonemasons, but now darkened with age and scarred from use. Each piece of stone incorporated into this sculptural work, testifies to their lost function and to the loss of those buildings and structures, that will likely disappear from the collective memory.

Once quarried for the city’s early sandstone buildings and to provide fill for the creation of Circular Quay, the Tarpeian Way is now but a thin veneer of earth covering the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. Seemingly emerging from yet at the same time sinking back into the ground, the artwork resembles an archaeology of the city.

Memory is Creation Without End symbolises the circular connection of past, present and future. In salvaging and reconfiguring the stones into this spiral unification of sculpture and landscape, the artist endows them with new life, meaning and memory.

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Sydney Arta life, 2004-07 Interloop Lloyd Rees Memory is Creation Without End Mermer Waiskeder (Stories of the Moving Tide) Table of Love Tank Stream Fountain Wishing Well Fountain

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