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Anne Vibeke Mou

The Creeping and The Wise

2021

The Creeping and The Wise is glass made from fossilised Romer’s gap Tetrapods and bone ash of Homo Sapiens with potash and kelp from forests of the sea and land.



The sculpture combines the beginnings of life as it emerged from the water to live on land with our own human species and the precarious position in the present. Evoking skeletal forms, the work embodies fluidity between the animal, human and botanical states.


Koilops herma and ‘Tiny’ Aytonerpeton microps (the creeping one from Ayton with the small face). Photography by Anne Vibeke Mou, research visit to National Museums Scotland collections. Discarded fossilised material from Willie’s Hole excavation used for glassmaking. Photograph by Anne Vibeke Mou in the studio. Stig Walsh with model demonstrating the evolution of tetrapods. Photograph by Anne Vibeke Mou, research visit to National Museums Scotland collections. Stig Walsh with fossilised bone demonstrating the evolution of tetrapods. Photograph by Anne Vibeke Mou, research visit to National Museums Scotland collections. Tetrapod fossil (later specimen). Photograph by Anne Vibeke Mou, research visit to National Museums Scotland collections. Site visit with Stig Walsh to Willie’s Hole excavation site, Chirnside, Scottish Borders. Photograph by Anne Vibeke Mou. Site visit with Stig Walsh to Willie’s Hole excavation site, Chirnside, Scottish Borders. Photograph by Anne Vibeke Mou.


Thanks to Sarah Rothwell, Dr Stig Walsh, National Museum of Scotland, Minimelt Glass, Colin Rennie and National Glass Centre. Photography by John McKenzie.