Nobody knows what happened to them, the people who populated the desolate Scottish Orkney Islands some 6,000 years ago, people who lived in architecturally advanced stone houses complete with beds and cupboards and tanks to keep their fish fresh and cool, the people who erected the majestic and mysterious Standing Stones of Stenness.
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“These stones were set up astrologically,” says artist Kim Soren Larsen. “I stood with a compass right off the left edge of each stone, and they are perfectly placed, all turned in perfect 30-degree increments times 12 stones to equal 360 degrees. The people also figured out a way that they could put these things up with just two men. They would dig a hole, leverage the stones up, and they would slide in. It’s amazing. This was 1,500 years before the pyramids. These were an extremely advanced people.”
The resultant artwork “transforms a photo so it transcends time and space,” Larsen says. To heighten the mythological effect, he frames his work in lead and juxtaposes the completed pieces with lead rectangles, having chosen the material for both its look of antiquity and its ancient associations with alchemists who tried to turn it into gold.
