Alabaster Ruins is a contemporary sugar sculpture, taking inspiration from stone, marble and the banqueting tables of the Elizabethan Era. The installation celebrates 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 combines 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, are transformed into transient ruins - pointing to the ephemerality and consumption of European culture, and the museum’s urge to preserve it.
Making of Alabaster Ruins (drying sugar sculptures) - Photo: Joe Sarah
Alabaster Ruins is part of Collecting Europe at the Victoria & Albert Museum | Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL | It will be displayed in The Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries, Room 21a | 1 - 7 February 2017 | Click here for more information.