Butter Point

2020
Paludal, Ōtautahi Christchurch

Butter Point attempts to draw together two historical subterranean objects: the discovery of The Liver of Piacenza by a cowherd in a field in Italy, and the burying of ‘a large amount of butter’ in the Antarctic by members of an early Robert Scott expedition. The Liver of Piacenza is an Etruscan artefact (c.100BC) used as a teaching tool or memory-aid for the reading of portents and forecasts in the livers of sacrificed sheep, part of the body which was considered to be a ‘mirror to the universe’. Butter Point is a real location in Antarctica, named for the cache of butter stored there by an expedition in 1903. The cache was placed in the hopes of the butter accompanying a meal of seal-meat on the return journey, but there is no evidence of the meal having been eaten or of the quantity of butter that was buried. The sculptures in Butter Point act as simplified and exaggerated replicas or documents of these specific animal-related objects that were used by humans to orient themselves on the earth and in relation to the stars.

Sunny Side Up, text by Jane Wallace [PDF: 4mbs]

Butter Point, paint, papier mâché, resin.
The liver as a mirror to the universe, bronze.
Echoes, locations, publication.
The liver as a mirror to the universe, bronze.
The liver as a mirror to the universe, bronze.
Echoes, locations, publication.
Butter Point, paint, papier mâché, resin. (detail)
The liver as a mirror to the universe, bronze.
Butter Point, paint, papier mâché, resin. (detail)
Butter Point, paint, papier mâché, resin. (detail)