Long Burrow 6

Long Burrow 6 is a steel sculpture originally created as part of the 1978 Commonwealth Sculpture Symposium. The XI Commonwealth Games in Edmonton provided an occasion to bring diverse people together in a moving panorama of cultures with the athletic events and a cultural programme. The objectives of the Symposium were twofold: to participate in the cultural context of the Commonwealth Games, and to provide a permanent memento, providing a greater public awareness of sculpture. The six artists chosen were all from different countries, and produced ten works of art. 

As part of Cogswell’s Dolmen series, Long Burrow 6 draws inspiration from the artist’s familiarity with prehistoric structures found in an area of England called Marlborough Downs, where Cogswell’s family had a home. The area was populated with numerous prehistoric monuments, including Long Barrows and Rounds Barrows – traditional burial mounds, of which more than 20,000 can be found. According to the artist, the archetypal sense of sanctity and mystery of these monuments became one of the main qualities that he attempted to achieve in making Long Burrow 6.

Of the sculpture, Cogswell wrote, ​“I would hope that these constructions elicit in the viewer responses similar to those that I have experienced when coming upon previously inhabited sites from other cultures. These responses include that feeling of being a trespasser in a land of wonder – a place where the past is still present, and where the land is hallowed and sanctified by the beings who dwelt there and by the rituals that they enacted.”