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In Praise of Competitions - 1996 Nissan Art Project - Dermot Boyd
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Celebration of another kind formed a part of this competition entry - the project was designed and entered in the Nissan Art Project 1996. I believe it made the short-list, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

The problem set by the judges was 'to propose a work of art that by its form or presence would extend the work of the Irish Museum of Modern Art beyond the gallery space into wider environments Dublin city centre and beyond'.

As an architect I have a strong interest in art and in some ways I find more inspiration for my work in the freedom that defines it and the mystery that makes it. I do believe that in this Age of Mechanical Reproduction as Walter Benjamin defined it, the 'aura' of the particular work of art should be celebrated and explored by the everyman.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) since its foundation has existed in splendid isolation in Dublin and I was immediately sympathetic to their need to extend their cultural reach. I conceived the 'work of art' that they describe as a container, responding to the brief, I believed as architect that this work should operate both as an artwork and as functioning container, a magic box filled with surprise and delight.

Art in the late 20th century has somewhat filled a void that religion left behind in fulfilling the spiritual needs of man. I became interested in the quasi-religious objects that exist in civilization and that modern culture has imitated or reinterpreted in its pursuit of this new epiphany.

I have always been fascinated by the Ka'ba. The black silk clothed hollow monolith located at the centre of the Mosque of Haram, measuring only 13m x 11m x 16m high which marks the centre of Islam, both geographically and spiritually. Its north east corner holds a meteorite or the Black Stone. They say that the Ka'ba was designed by the prophet, Abraham the father of all religions and all Muslims turn to pray to this structure five times a day.

During his hajj, the Muslim pilgrim must circumambulate the Ka'ba seven times moving against the sun to achieve the maximum exposure to the baraka or the invisible psychic fluid that emanates from this sacral object. There is a great video that I believe still forms one of the exhibits in the Chester Beatty Library. Filmed within Mecca, it shows the circumambulation of pilgrims at the Ka'ba, like an immense whirlpool of human devotion.