Output details

The Turra Coo Public Sculpture - a permanent public artwork located in Turriff town centre

The Turra Coo sculpture is a permanent public artwork centrally located in Turriff, the agricultural capital of Scotland, commissioned as a memorial to mark the centenary of a significant event in Turriff’s social history (1913). The research was challenged to create a tension and play between realism and surrealism in the viewer. In terms of realism, the commission marked the 1913 incident in which a farmer and local inhabitants resisted the imposition of government taxation involving the confiscation and repatriation of a cow. This was well documented through photography and underpinned the brief. A principal aim of Blyth’s work is to explore taxidermy as a form of engendering ‘representational accuracy’. Drawing expertise from the farming community, the research addresses very specific rural and agricultural subjects in the creation of new meanings around human-animal relationships, in particular with animals bred for food http://www.publicartscotland.com/2013/11/human-animal-relations-in-the-north-east. Working alongside two expert mould-makers (Engebretson and Hutchison), Blyth introduces a surreal quality, bringing his deep knowledge of taxidermy to make a sculpture, which transforms the cow into an icon of resistance. This dramatically distinguishes itself from similar types of public sculpture (Concrete Cows, Milton Keynes (1978) by creating a work that operates in two registers, the popular and the conceptual.

The research involved a rigorous process of consultations with multiple stakeholders (historians, council officials, stock judges, abattoir workers, local community, schools) with presentations given at The Turriff Show (August 2008/09), Scotland’s largest agricultural event. The sculpture was unveiled by First Minister, Alex Salmond (November 2010).

The commission was organised by Turriff Tourism Group (TTAG) with support from LEADER, The McRobert Trust, The Mary Salmond Trust, Turriff District Ltd, local/private donation; to the total value of £96,000. In 2012, the sculpture was awarded Merit of Distinction for Public Art at the Aberdeenshire Design Awards.