Time Capsule (2000)

Time Capsule (2000)

Metalized cast polyurethane resin

15 cm high (parts and diameter variable, installation specific)

‘Alison Gill’s Time Capsule is a group of chrome mushrooms, arranged in a fairy ring. Life-size, the mushrooms have been cast from real mushrooms, their shiny chrome surface lending them an air of other-worldliness at odds with their direct connection to objects in the real world but in keeping with supposedly magical properties of mushrooms. Fairy rings, springing up over night as if from nowhere, are associated with a wealth of folklore. The mushrooms encircle a charmed space, one from which children may be spirited away, and adults loose themselves. In the gallery, the tiny scale of the sculpted mushrooms, and their defiant defence of their magical inner circle creates an uncanny, imaginary space, perhaps the wondrous yet overwhelming space of childhood fantasy. The artist’s interest in altered states of mind and the power of imagination is evident in this work, in which she skilfully transforms material into models of things which are themselves vehicles of transformation and veneration.’

Fiona Bradley, extract from Dream Machines Catalogue, selected by Susan Hiller, Hayward Gallery National Touring Exhibition 2000