Through the Mists of Time

An interactive audio visual installation celebrating the imagination and the achievements of humans living at the end of the last Ice Age.

Commissioned by The Hive and Worcester Museum and Art Gallery, ‘Through the Mists of Time’ was inspired by the traces of cave art left by humans living towards the end of the last Ice Age and informed by some of the artwork created by visitors through a series of participatory workshops organised by Meadow Arts. A celebration of imagination and the humans ability to go beyond the here and now, constructing shared systems of beliefs and creating symbols, ceremonies and rituals.

Visitors approached a large wooden structure with a small entrance, created to mimic the conditions of a cave. Animated images of Palaeolithic cave art were projected onto the interior side walls accompanied by an atmospheric soundtrack. On the front wall  a layer of interactive ice covered the scene. The ice melted as the visitor approached to reveal figures in strange head dresses. When the visitor moved too close, the figures were once again covered in ice, disappearing from view like our ancestors in the mists of time.
www.iceageworcestershire.uk/

“Looking at this period you are kind of looking through the clouds, you are searching through the mist for traces of something you know must be there. You can infer it but often you reach out to grasp it and it vanishes, it disappears”. Robert Hedge, archaeologist