AN art installation depicting Earth, how an astronaut would see it from space, is to make its Scottish debut as part of an outdoor tour at the Kelpies near Falkirk.
Gaia, is a seven-metre scale model of Earth created by installation artist Luke Jerram.
It will make its Scottish premiere at Fire & Light: Cosmic Fortunes, which is returning to The Helix on January 1 and 2, 2019.
The event sees fire performance, interactive light installations, puppetry and animated projections depicting the signs of the Zodiac, in front of the Kelpies sculptures.
Gaia aims to create the ‘Overview Effect’ which is a phenomenon astronauts experience when viewing the Earth from Space "in which they feel a sense of awe and a renewed sense of responsibility for the planet."
The installation features detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface and each centimetre of the installation represents 18km of the Earth’s surface.
Luke Jerram said: "I am delighted that Gaia will reach new audiences in Scotland at Fire & Light: Cosmic Fortunes. We have been able to gaze at the moon for as long as we have lived on this planet, but have only known what the Earth looks like from space in the last half a century.
"Viewing Gaia will give people a realistic idea of what it is like to see the Earth from space or, if they stand at the correct distance away, from the moon.”
www.thehelix.co.uk
A NEW string quartet commission is to receive its premiere in Edinburgh next March.
The Edinburgh Quartet are to perform to a music and spoken word commission by Peter Longworth.
The new piece, titled Island Verses, has been written "specifically to engage with young people on the Quartet’s tour of some of Scotland’s remotest islands."
Workshops with author Ron Butlin, students across Scotland will write texts "exploring their sense of island life and sense of place."
These will be added to the piece and performed.
Peter Longworth said: "I was thrilled to be invited by the Edinburgh Quartet to compose a new work on the theme of exile, and I spent a considerable amount of time contemplating the subject before I began composing.
"As one fortunate enough never to have experienced exile I determined that the notion of home - the tragedy of losing it and the struggle to find it anew in a different place - should be the departure point for the work, although the music also draws upon the topic of water as a symbol both of journeys and of isolation."
The performance will take place at The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh on 3 March 2019.
www.edinburghquartet.com
GLASGOW University's museum and gallery, The Hunterian, closes a major exhibition on 6 January.
William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum is open over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
After the show closes, it will move to the Yale Center for British Art in the United States.
The last event in the supporting programme takes place on Friday 4 January 2019 at the Hunterian Art Gallery.
A talk by Hunterian Deputy Director Mungo Campbell, highlights an important new acquisition – a painting thought to have been lost for almost 80 years.
The portrait of physician Richard Brocklesby (1722-1797) by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), was thought to have been destroyed during an air-raid on Bristol in 1940.
Brocklesby, an Edinburgh-trained physician and Fellow of the Royal Society, was a contemporary and associate of William Hunter.
As well as the William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum exhibition at the Hunterian Art Gallery, there are two contemporary art displays: Rosengarten and Strange Foreign Bodies.
Admission to all exhibitions is free.
www.gla.ac.uk
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