Jan 20, 2017
Blade in Queen Victoria Square, Hull

The artist Nayan Kulkarni said the Blade would be an object of wonder. 

He's right. You can only feel a sense of awe at its immensity and imagine how they secure three of these 250ft 28-tonne scimitars of the sea to the turbine bodies and the immense forces those North Sea nacelles must withstand.

People are bound to ask if it's really art. Over again to Nayan Kulkarni, the man with the audacious vision to propose putting the Blade where it is: "There was no need to make a new sculpture, there was one already being made here," he said. "It's made by hand, a really traditional, artisanal object made physically by the people of Hull."

Visitors stroke it, pat it, get good vibrations from hitting it....they really love the Blade.

Oddly, the Blade no longer feels out of place so far from its natural environment. It's going to leave a very large gap when it's edged back to Siemens on March 18.

An extra plus point about the installation is the palpable sense of pride the City of Culture volunteers at the site have in the Blade and Hull itself.

They can reel off mind-blowing statistics and tell you about visitors from out of town, the Continent, even Australia, marvelling at this remarkable example of UK-European cooperation early in the City of Culture year.

It is art.

Mike

You can read more about Blade on the Hull UK City of Culture website: https://www.hull2017.co.uk/wha...