Sunday 13 September 2009

Cornwall Holiday Pictures Part One: The Eden Project

We had an excellent week away down in Cornwall last week, and I naturally took a shedload of pictures while we were down there so here's the first batch that cover what we did and where we went. The first day was the only overcast day. The rest of the week was all blue skies and ridiculously hot weather, so we were pretty lucky considering the usual state of the British weather! It being overcast we decided to head to The Eden Project as it's all pretty much undercover and, as one of the biodomes is of a tropical/rainforest kind of heat, the cooler it was outside, the more bearable it'd be inside! That said, it was still pretty heavy going, heat-wise, but was well worth the visit. The setting, even in the dense kind of fog that surrounded the area that day, was visually stunning. The domes themselves are strangely beautiful, alien things, and you really feel like you're stepping into some science fiction landscape. Here's some pics from the day. It was difficult to get clear pictures as the lens would mist over if you left it open for too long!
I liked this pic of 'The Seed', a structure in the central area, purely because it put me in mind of something from a Kubrick movie. It's about 20-30ft high, and again, feels deeply alien. Whoever comissions the art and sculptures at the Eden Project is someone after my own slightly twisted heart and mind. There's some splendidly weird stuff as a bonus to the spectacle of the biodomes.

And this was very cool. Constructed out of 'found items' such as washing machines, vaccum cleaners and PCs, it was a huge, huge structure that put me in mind of something from the heady days of 2000AD...
In the Mediterranean dome, my eye was caught by these stunning, almost Barker-esque sculptures by Tim Shaw of Bacchanal Dionysus rites - scenes of divine madness, possession, sacrifice and orgy. It didn't seem to find favour with the older folk in the dome, but I absolutely loved them, and gave me some ideas for my next novel which I'll be researching soon.
Next post will be St Ives and Land's End, which may contain scenes of a Doctor Who nature, as there was an exhibition that, being the geeks we are, we had to visit...

1 comment:

fluid69 said...

Man, that place looks cool.

Glad you had a good holiday. Look forward to hearing about the rest of it.

Other than picking up the car - which is very nice, and had 7 miles on clock when I collected it - I've not done much. Was ill over much of the weekend.

Too many house related worries at mo to think about doing much else but sorting stuff out.