Emily Speed
Human Castle
2 August 2012
A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art and now based in Liverpool, Emily Speed’s work explores the complex relationship between architecture and the human. Through her wide ranging practise, she considers architecture not as an isolated built form but rather as a space to be inhabited, a container for human experience and memory. Speed often wears her work, creating fragile cardboard constructions, at once protecting and exposing the artist.
In a new commission for Edinburgh Art Festival, Speed will work for the first time with performers, to create a human pyramid. Dressed in sculptural costumes, figures will variously appear from hiding places in Edinburgh’s West Princes Street gardens, coming together to create a human castle (their costumes contributing to the illusion), before disbanding again.
The motto for Edinburgh’s Royal Military Tattoo – Castellum est urbs (the fortress is the city) – sees city and castle as one in the same. In situating her commission at the heart of the city, Speed’s work continues her exploration of architecture as a protective layer which surrounds us and shapes us in equal measure.
The film of the performance of Human Castle is by Daniel Warren.
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