Over the last year Ursae has been working on two extremely prestigious sculptures for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Ursae’s expertise in bespoke high end luxury goods, landed them with the task to produce two of the sites most detailed and complex pieces.
The sculptures are part of the 5.35million pound redevelopment of Shakespeare’s family home 1597 -1616, on Chapel Street in Stratford Upon Avon.
The garden has been designed to commemorate the importance of the site and allows visitors to make their own personal connection with Shakespeare.
When Shakespeare bought New Place he was an established playwright and it is believed that he wrote his later plays there, including The Tempest.
One can follow in Shakespeare’s footsteps through a new entrance on the site of the original gatehouse and enjoy a contemporary landscape that reveals the footprint of the Shakespeare family home. The re-imagined site gives an impression of the scale of New Place and relationship to the surrounding buildings; such as the neighbouring King Edward VI School and Guild Chapel that were once attended by a young Shakespeare.
The commissioned artworks and displays throughout the site will evoke a sense of family life and hint at Shakespeare’s major works that were written during the 19 years he owned New Place.
Ursae’s role in this special project was to create a Terrestrial Globe depicting the knowledge of Elizabethan period, giving an insight to what Shakespeare and his peers believed the world to look like at that point in time. Showing the world as known by the court of Queen Elizabeth in 1600, and based upon the first English world map, it exhibits both the surprisingly expansive knowledge of the seas, and the focused provincial mindset of the Tudor elite. The unknown world is dark and disturbing, while the known is bright, shining and anglocentric.
In addition an extremely detailed Sculpture of a Silver Ship is being created. The ship will suspend almost magically from fine wires supported by a bronze cradle. The perfect glimmering galleon harks back to the mystifying unscathed Ship from the Tempest play.