Oscar Nolan

Project Description

Flowing from the east of the Nor Loch is a fluid territory, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, bisecting the city of Edinburgh. At Canongate, a pinch point occurs within this wetland, and there a stone tower is built, rooted firmly in the volcanic bedrock of Edinburgh. As the stone tower is built up, a well is dug down, tapping into the saturated aquifer beneath, referred to by brewers as the charmed circle. Inside this tower is a meadery where honey (produced from hives and wildflowers among the wetland ) and water (dredged from the charmed circle) ferment together within copper tanks, vessels, and pipes. It is a place of experimental zymology; old recipes are researched, reinvented, and renewed, and through this form of cultural archaeology, time is bridged. Nestled into this tower, and propped on stone foundations that contain inherent geological locality within their grounding, a bridge is constructed. Timber vessels are suspended across the wetland, renewing a commons that has been nearly rendered extinct: the mead hall. The bridge becomes a place of banqueting and community, a place of refuge across the wetland.