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55 Ring Maze
Arthur’s Seat, 2000
Artist Statement
The idea behind a maze is based on a very old, arcane tradition of the maze or labyrinth acting as a means for those who entered them to spiritually reach enlightenment - especially with the early Christian mazes.
Their history began before the Greeks and was adopted and developed very much by the Greeks, Romans and Celts and later featured in French and English medieval design and architecture.
Since I have worked with Celtic and Roman labyrinth and maze designs in much of my work in the last decade I felt confident about developing a design for a three acre cornfield maze at Arthur’s Seat. The challenge was that it had to be ‘user friendly’ as well as having ‘design integrity’.
My 55 Ring Maze is designed using circles on a grid. There are, in total, 55 circles most of which are not intact but are opened up in order to keep the pathways in motion and allow main arterial trajectories to be constructed.
The objective for the participant is to discover the main routes through the maze and the only clue I should give at this stage is to suggest the importance of the diagonals, i.e. think of a big ‘X’ in the maze.
The overall movement of the maze is one of descent where one enters at the top of the field and gradually works one’s way downhill with an occasional ascent until one finds the exit at the bottom of the field. The participant should be prepared for dead endings and false pathways that could lead you back to where you have just been. There is no way of avoiding wrong turns.
On route, you will come across 8 markers that indicate your position within the maze. These markers are the cardinal points indicating the north, south, east, west and the north-east,north-west, south-east, south-west positions.
There is also a bridge from where you can observe the scope of the maze and it will be at that point, when crossing the bridge, that you will have travelled roughly half of the journey.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Good luck with the journey and may each participant find the reserves of patience required in losing and finding yourselves - which is what a maze is all about!
Marion Borgelt
5th February 2000