The blessed world of Sydney Law students ... Bronze statues outside the law school capture the zeitgeist ... A message for today ... The interior and the exterior
Organic rippling emotion on the outside, with polished interior
AT the University of Sydney Law School students are exposed to much more than the dusty rigmarole of learning the law.
Special effort has gone into trying to get students to think beyond themselves and their consuming sense of moi.
What has been neglected, until now, is context and framework - the individual as part of a social compact ... community and the self ... the components that comprise the whole.
Cunningly this message has been conveyed by recently arrived bronze sculptures placed right outside the law school building.
They are the creation of esteemed sculptor and "land artist" Andrew Rogers.
There are lots of forces at work here. Some see a fusion of Henry Moore and Robert Klippel. Others have sensed the haunting spirit of Alberto Giacometti.
Justinian rejects those loosely formed appraisals. Rogers is very much his own individual.
Indeed, the cluster of forms on the patch of grass is called Individuals 2013.
There's an informative plaque that spells out the message and around which students cluster in the search for meaning.
Even though a pidgeon has carelessly blotted some of the words, it's worth scraping aside the guano and reading the text in its entirety:
"We are all individuals possessing the sanctity of a singular life and the ability to express ourselves. At the same time we are part of the society within which we live.
'Individuals' is a metaphor for that relationship with the organic rippling emotion and pulsating, ribbed and undulating outer surfaces acting as a counterpoint to the delicate, highly polished interior world of our thoughts.
'Individuals' is a metaphor for the inseparable relationship between singularity and community.
These individual figurative forms come together as a close community, yet it is always to be remembered that it is the individual that makes our world a place or justice and compassion."
Who could express such complexity any better?