Over Westminster (Carbon Copy)

“This body is not, cannot be, all that I am.” C.P. Snow 

Over Westminster (Carbon Copy) explores the profundity and divinity of the body. A constellation, shown using the vertebrae of sheep and set against a deep ground of pigment and plaster, tells the story of carbon: how, over billions of years, we evolved from stardust in the Big Bang to these elegantly formed bones.

Blue, as used by Giotto, is the colour of infinity, chosen as an emotional tool to evoke the vastness of the universe, eternity and the divine.

By presenting the vertebrae as stars, Scott shifts our perspective, encouraging us to see the body as part of a wider cosmic pattern. Allowing us to appreciate the interconnectivity of our matter. How it came from space and will continue after our embodiment ends. 

The work unfolds across an aluminium grid held within two sweeping arcs. Here Scott brings organic and industrial materials into conversation. To make the piece, Scott used a map provided by Greenwich Observatory in London. The same constellation hangs over all of London and Westminster: a reminder that there is a larger story, more powerful than anything man can achieve, hanging above us, but also existing within us.

Carbon Copy can be understood ironically: we can never replicate such profound complexity. The grid considers our mere attempts to measure and comprehend this vast intricacy.

Sheep bone (prepared to museum standard), plaster, pigment, aluminium, wood.

H 255cm, W 355cm, D7cm (in 8 panels each weighing 19kg)