University of Alberta Museums Search

In 1978 Edmonton hosted the XI Commonwealth Games alongside Festival 78 , an extensive arts and culture program meant to showcase the cultures, traditions and art of the Commonwealth countries. The Commonwealth Sculpture Symposium, one of the most crucial components of the festival, provided the setting in which Sky and Earth was created. Ten visiting sculptors from across the Commonwealth assembled at the University of Alberta for six weeks to create ten separate works; four of the works were subsequently acquired by the University, with six works going to the City of Edmonton, Skiy and Earth was gifted in 1980 to the University of Alberta by the Commonwealth Sculpture Symposium Committee, where it became a part of the University of Alberta Art Collection for display in the North Power Plant, now Dewey's, a Students' Union lounge. Berlings Lengani Kaunda (born in Malawi) studied art at Uganda's Makerere University, graduating in 1969, and went on to receive his MFA from Southern Illinois University in 1974. He would later become the head of the Fine and Performing Arts Department at the University of Malawi, Chancellor College, and the curator of the National Museum of Malawi. For six weeks he worked with cedar wood from British Columbia, also incorporating paint and malachite into Sky and Earth, a sculpture depicting fertility, which proved to be a recurring theme in Kaunda's work, along with those of transformation, healing and reconcilliation. Upon its completion, Kaunda wrote a poem that provides further insight into his thoughts and feelings on Sky and Earth's meaning and place in Edmonton.