Quiet spot

For his impressive sculpture Echo of the Veluwe, the New Zealand sculptor Chris Booth chooses a quiet spot in the sculpture garden: a small sand hill, somewhat hidden among the trees. The work is placed there ‘like a wave of the wind’, as he describes it.

Spiral

As is customary with a sculpture made by Booth for a specific place, the material comes from the immediate vicinity: 310 boulders that were deposited there from the north by glaciers about 150,000 years ago. The boulders form a spiral or helix, a shape that you find ‘everywhere in nature, but also in art’, says Booth. ‘Both the Maori and the Celts – I’m descended from both – use it in their works of art.’

Ceremony

Booth works on Echo of the Veluwe for two summers on location, after a small ceremony is held on the sand hill, out of respect for the place and its history, from the earliest settlement to the present day. The ceremony is performed by the oldest inhabitant of Otterlo. Eventually, he also dedicates the sculpture in the presence of New Zealand Maoris and residents of Otterlo.