Titanica - Titanic Belfast Exhibition Centre - Belfast - Figurative Public Sculpture on Waymarking.com

This beautiful sculpture sits at the front of Titanic Belfast, the worlds largest Titanic visitors centre, set in the heart of Belfast's former docklands where the great ship Titanic was built.

The bronze sculpture was designed by Rowan Gillespie and depicts a female figurine that would have been mounted to ships bows to represent hope and positivity.

"A big honour for Dock-world today: we were asked by the top brass behind Titanic Belfast to lead a ceremony to ‘launch’ (if that’s the right word) the new ‘Titanica’ sculpture at the entrance to the visitor centre.

And in keeping with the Dock ethos, I didn’t lead the ceremony All By Myself – it was a team effort between representatives from all the traditions involved in Dock-world. Which is exactly as it should be – it just gives me such hope and joy that the ‘shared medley’ is part of the DNA of everything we do right from the start.

The sculpture itself is an interesting one! – Rowan Gillespie, the sculptor (a lovely bloke) admits himself that most people are going to notice certain aspects of the figurine first… “that woman is in the nip!”. The sculpture draws on the angles of the building behind it, the idea of a ship’s figurehead, the image of Kate Winslet’s famous pose from the movie, and the contrast in scale between the life-size human figure and the towering hulls of Titanic Belfast soaring above.

More seriously, Rowan also spoke about the many hours of effort he spent on the face of the figure – a sad, haunting expression, paying tribute to the tragedy of Titanic’s story. And he also confirmed that he very consciously made the figure ‘cruciform’, so that those with eyes to see could identify a cross, the ultimate symbol of both death and life, despair and hope.

So – what a day! An Anglican, a Methodist, a Catholic and a Presbyterian joining forces to dedicate a sculpture of a woman in the altogether! It certainly provided both a light-hearted piece for the Evening News, and a great example of the new Shared Belfast in action…"

SOURCE - (visit link)

Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: Titanica Figure Type: Human Artist Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: Rowan Gillespie Date created or placed or use 'Unknown' if not known: 2012 Materials used: Bronze Location: Titanic Belfast Exhibition Centre

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/30/2024 3Bobs visited it 07/25/2019 Kladings visited it 09/10/2018 Craftydaisy visited it 06/25/2018 veritas vita visited it 06/05/2018 Master Mariner visited it 05/12/2018 Eca_74 visited it 09/09/2015 Bush-Rescue visited it

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