Jupiter Artland; Or, Down the Rabbit Hole

LOCATION: JUPITER ARTLAND, EDINBURGH, UK 

Falling for a part museum, part gallery, part old-fashioned garden wonderland that inhabits a space one step removed from the world outside.

Sculpture gardens, it must be said, have fallen decidedly out of fashion over the last handful of centuries. But their renaissance is nigh, if Jupiter Artland has anything to say about it. Located just outside Edinburgh, the beautiful grounds are home to more than thirty permanent works, as well as events, performances, residencies, and exhibitions. They recommend two hours to tour the full grounds, but one could easily fill a full afternoon exploring. Jupiter Artland is open from April through September, making full use of the best that Scottish weather has to offer.

Edinburgh, though a strikingly verdant city with an enormous number of gardens and parks, is also remarkably exclusive about its green spaces. But the gardens that are open to the public meanderer are often put to good cultural use. Princes Street Gardens, besides its stunning seasonal landscaping and famous Ross Fountain, is also home to several other works of sculpture, including Wotjek the Soldier Bear, the Forget-Me-Not Elephant, and a plethora of memorials and statues of various historical luminaries. Besides a beautiful place to pretend to read a book while gently nodding off on your lunch break, it is a repository of art, which can be enjoyed as intently or as lazily as one wishes.

< JUPITER – ( 893 MILLION TO 964 MILLION KILOMETERS ) >

Jupiter Artland takes this ethos and skips off with it, through amethyst woods and down rose-lined walks. The first stretch of the 100-acre [!] park meanders through a beautiful forested area, which is home to a huge number of works, including [by my count] two real-life rabbit holes [The light pours out of me and Suck]. Many of the woods' pieces are sculptures, ranging from the human [Weeping Girls, Xth Muse] and the architectural [Quarry, Temple of Apollo] to the puckish and strange [Separation in the Evening (a celestial blossom before the yellow house), Firmament].

Some works, however, go beyond living harmoniously with the forest around them to fully incorporate the landscape into their essence. Andy Goldsworthy's Stone Coppice, created in 2009, has changed continuously since its instalment, as the coppiced trees grow and move the stone blocks of the work. Many works beyond the woods take this approach, such as Ian Hamilton Finlay's Beehives, which are home to honeybees and this five-part inscription:

“

BEES

they lightly skim

and gently sip

the dimply rivers brim

BOATS

”

At risk of one too many Alice in Wonderland pulls, the woods opens up to a very Garden of Live Flowers-esque piece by Pablo Bronstein entitled Rose Walk. We were phenomenally lucky to pick such a stunning day to visit, because this piece is at the zenith of its glory in this type of direct sunlight. This is another piece that truly exists in conversation with the landscape around it, coming to life with the wildflowers outside its fences providing a beautiful contrast to the carefully pruned roses within [see below for photographic evidence]. Its two pavilions are a similar contrast in style – one Gothic and one Chinoiserie – that are nevertheless in harmony as the light filters through the ornate architecture to create endlessly interesting studies in pattern.

9.5.9 – "HERE ON THIS LAND / ON THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON / A LUNAR METEORITE FELL / AND WAS LOST"

Perhaps the park's most signature work is Charles Jencks' Cells of Life, which are a masterwork of landscape architecture. It features swirling, almost Seussian shapes framing turquoise ponds skimmed by dragonflies interspersed by the occasional rock sculpture or unexpected fire-engine red bridge. If ever you desired to tumble into a real-life topographical map, well, tickets are available now.

Jupiter Artland truly has it all – memento mori [In Memory], homeopathic poetry [Mesostic Remedy], an upside-down abandoned toy shop [Mimi], and the chance to examine the water of a hundred different rivers [Rivers]. Even their snacks have artistic flair.

There is an ongoing theme in many of these works of temporality, of responding to and honouring the passage of time. Peter Liversidge's Winter Shadow carries the memory of winter into the blooming of spring. Its shape, composed of 6000 black Queen of the Night tulips, traces the outline left by the shadow of the bare winter branches of a nearby tree. The flowers are gone by summer, but the bulbs are replanted each winter to continue the cycle. Alec Finlay's A Variety of Cultures is also a study in time passages, but its scope is one of years and decades rather than the annual cycle of seasons. It is comprised of sixty-six native fruit tree saplings, each with a ladder planted in the soil beside it. As the trees grow taller and bear fruit, visitors will be able to climb up to harvest plums and apples.

“

an orchard is an

archive of locality

”

To whet your appetite, just outside Cafe Party is Helen Chadwick's delightfully  named Piss Flowers. The flowers them- selves are tame enough, but the method  used to create them is indeed true to the work's name. Up close, the plaster grows upward in stalagmite-like formations,  like icy stamens. Nearby, Jim Lambie's  A Forest truly takes visitors through the looking glass [or, at least, refracts them a good many times].

Sharing the water with Rivers is Christian Boltanski’s fully immersive work Animitas, which includes over two hundred tiny bells which are free to chime in the wind. Its music accompanies visitors as they explore this beautiful, strange wonderland of art, poetry, design, and nature. Each and every work is created with such intention and care, and visitors carry that forward, moving through the grounds and the works with open eyes and a delicate step. Please visit if you can, and remember: leave everything as you found it, especially the amethysts.

[ STEALING AMETHYST BRINGS BAD LUCK ] Model: Anoushka Brannan. Photos 10, 12, & 15 by Anoushka Brannan. All other photography by Annika Jordan.