The Council of Europe, Strasbourg

Young British Artists, Saatchi Collection, London, 1992

wood, glass, lacquer

Various dimensions

Surrounding Time is a sculpture which assembles six elliptical elements: the three table-vitrines contain distorted models of the VUB building, Leuven University, Brussels, the auditorium of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, and the European flag in relief. The wall frames contain anamorphic representations of the Colosseum in Rome, a prison in Ghent, and the HQ of The Glaverbel Corporation in Brussels. Like starships tracing paths through space, they suggest movement, and embody the idea of time linked to speed and it’s power of de stabilisation.

By combining seminal buildings from different periods of European history, Surrounding Time puts Roman antiquity and contemporary European politics into the perspectives of empire, spectacle, and domination. In essence the functions of any state may be reduced to the co ordination of three interdependent primary powers, ideo - cultural, economic, and punitive: we shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us.