Professor Lin Xu was born in Inner Mongolia, China. Her family moved to Beijing when she was 12. Following graduation with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Professor Xu worked as an engineer for a couple years, then switched to graphic design and worked in the advertising industry for a longer period of time. She loved art as a little girl, and always intended to gear her life in that direction. After saving some money, she left China when she was 27. In 2000, she completed her undergraduate studies in Visual Arts, and applied to attend graduate school. After four years at Washington State University - three to complete her studies and one year of teaching - she joined the new Fine Arts program at Brandon University.
Custodial History
This artwork was created on site in its current location in the spring of 2008.
Scope and Content
This artwork was commissioned by the President Dr. Louis Visentin in 2005. It was designed as a public art for the BU community to enrich an environment, to communicate about life and culture, and to provide people with a visual source to contemplate.
Titled Gyration, the artwork consists six slender poles ranging from 7 to 8 feet high, each measures approximate 5 inches in diameter. Five are decorated with black and white line drawings inspired from micro-biology images. They are completed at the top with organic shapes and solid colors. The five decorated cylinders represent the essential contemporary technologies such as Text. Data, Voice, Image, Networking, and Human Factor. The one left white represents the unknown.
The artwork was created from porcelain - one of the purest and the strongest clays on earth, it was then cleared glazed and fired to 1240 Celsius. The material and the process echo the purity and the strength of human spirit nourished by the earth and the nature environment.
The circular wheel-throwing marks create a sense of upward movement and energy of grovvth, representing human being' s never ending search for knowledge, perfection, and unknown. It is hoped that the colour, the tree like vertical lineal rhythms, the vessel forms, the images, and the sense of movement will appear to the viewers in a different way and produce free associations and connections, and yet to bring together a symbolic world integrating science and art, form and mind, nature and human.
Notes
The description contained in the scope and content note is taken verbatim from an e-mail from Lin Xu to Tom mitchell 22 May 2008.The original was filed in the correspondence file Brandon University Administrative Records 16.3.Biographical note adapted from Lin Xu's biographical note at http://liszt.brandonu.ca/BUDirectory/BUProfile/Default.aspx?Dep_Key=30&Per_Key=871
The cairn was constructed in 1999 as part of the University's centennial activities. It was built by Mike Brewer, a local stonemason, using stones taken from the original site of Prairie College, which was located one mile north of Rapid City. The project was inspired by President Dennis Anderson, who wanted to povide a physical symbol on campus of Prairie College, as it was linked through the McKee Academy (located in Rapid City until 1890 and then in Brandon until 1898), Brandon College and Brandon University.
Scope and Content
The cairn is located in front of the Original Building east entrance. A time capsul, containing a list of the items enclosed, as well as copies of the 199-2001 Brandon University General Calendar, the 1998-1999 Brandon University Students' Union student handbook, the 1999 Brandon University Spring Convocation program, a Brandon University at a Glance fact sheet, the Spring 1999 edition of Alumni News, the March 17, 1999 edition of the Quill, a 1999 Mini University program, the Prairie College archaeology project abstract, a Prairie College archaeology project poster, the July 2, 1999 edition of the Brandon Sun, the 1999-2000 City of Brandon Tourist Guide, a Brandon city map and a Canadian Federation of Students pamphlet, was sealed inside the cairn on July 2, 1999 as part of the 100th Anniversary celbrations of Brandon University.
Notes
Part of BU 16.3 Artifacts - other. History/Bio provided by Tom Mitchell (April 10, 2007).
Storage Location
RG 6 Brandon University fonds
Series16: Brandon University/College artifacts
16.3 Artifacts - other
East side of the Original Building
Related Material
Photographs of the cairn dedication ceremony are located in the Brandon University Photograph collection under series 10 (Special Events) in the 100th Anniversary sub-series. Thomasin Playford's "Archaeological investigations at the Prairie College site (EaMA-9): a Baptist College in the Canadian Northwest (final report for grant 98F-W149)" and John Edwin Davis' "The life story of a leper: autobiography of John E. Davis, Canadian Baptist missionary among the Telugus." Both are available in the John E. Robbins Library.
