U3A history group organiser welcomes final speakers before retiral

Her final speakers were Alison Neil, CEO of the South Georgia Heritage Trust, Dundee, and Michael Visocchi from Kirriemuir, landscape artist, sculptor and winning designer of Commensalis.

This is a sculpted memorial in the former whaling station of Grytviken on the island of South Georgia, the birthplace of the Antarctic whaling industry. Seven low Corten steel drums, Michael’s Spirit Tables, will be set into the flensing plan of the whaling station, echoing the enormous whale oil storage tanks.

Each ‘table’ will be covered with stainless steel hemispheres - ‘rivets’ arranged in the shape of nightingale charts to represent the staggering 175,250 whales of six species killed there from 1904 till 1966 and rendered down into barrels of oil.

Alison explained that the tide is now turning, and thanks to ongoing conservation efforts, humpback whale numbers have returned to what they were in the pre-whaling days.

Now back in his workshop, Michael, who beat 150 competitors to win the commission, is now constructing the Key Table, the first and largest part of the sculpture. It will be exhibited in June this year between Dundee’s V&A and the dry dock home of RRS Discovery, before being shipped to the Antarctic. As Alison said “art is a really powerful way of conveying a complex message.”