Alabaster Ruins

Alabaster Ruins was a contemporary sugar sculpture, taking inspiration from stone, marble and the banqueting tables of the Elizabethan Era. The installation celebrated European architectural heritage, bringing together fragments of English Tudor, French Gothic, German Baroque and Classical Greek structures. Throughout the early modern period sugar was a true luxury, with sugar sculptures becoming synonymous with status, identity and power. Drawing on this history, Alabaster Ruins combined ancient and modern techniques, using a 17th century ‘sugar-plate’ recipe alongside cutting-edge 3D printing technology. The forms, scanned and cast from the V&A’s own collection, were transformed into transient ruins - pointing to the ephemerality and consumption of European culture, and the museum’s urge to preserve it.

___________________

Alabaster Ruins | Collecting Europe
Victoria & Albert Museum | Cromwell Road, London
Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries, Room 21a
1 - 7 February 2017

Click here to view more photos.