Terracotta Army Invades Edinburgh

This is a very belated Chinese New Year post, but I really wanted to share photos of the exhibition before it was March..

 [Warning : very picture heavy post!]



In celebration of Chinese New Year the University of Edinburgh brings a great swathe of China to the Old College Quadrangle where the famous art installation of larger-than-life lantern warriors has just marched into. They were designed by Chinese artist Xia Nan for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, inspired by the army of ancient Chinese terracotta warriors which was created to defend the inner soul of the 3rd century BC First Chinese Emperor Qui Shi Huang. The artist uses traditional Chinese lantern designs to re-imagine this impressive archaeological discovery. There will be as many as 90 brightly coloured figures which are lit from within and stand at around 2.5m tall. They include men with horses as well as women and children.

The boy and I waited until dark to fully appreciate the multi-coloured spectacle; the area was so busy with visitors that various security staff can be seen dotted around to prevent any damage that may happen to them. Though we were glad to see them all in one piece after the terrible weather that has been occurring!





Hope everyone had fun celebrating CNY in their own way!

- A.