Message from the skies 2019

Kapka Kassabova's Love Letter to Europe
The National Monument of Scotland, Calton Hill, Edinburgh, Scotland

About the creative team

Writer: Kapka Kassabova is a poet and the author of Border: a journey to the edge of Europe (2017) which won the British Academy's Al-Rodhan Prize and the inaugural Highland Book Prize, and was 2017 Saltire Book of the Year and 2018 Stanford-Dolman Book of the Year. Her other non-fiction books are Twelve Minutes of Love and Street Without a Name. She lives in the Scottish Highlands.

Designer: Brightside Studios are designers, creative thinkers and technology hunters. They deliver experiences that are engaging & meaningful. They deliver immersive experiential design which connects people with brands, stories and spaces. They work on ambitious projects for architects, interior designers, museums, galleries, broadcasters, brands and theatres.

Composer: Pippa Murphy is an award winning Scottish composer and sound designer who writes for theatre, dance, film, choirs and orchestras. She has written music for BBC 2, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, Scottish Opera, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, Edinburgh Book festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, St Magnus International Festival, and numerous theatre companies including The Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Stellar Quines, Dundee Rep, Birmingham Rep, Grid Iron, Tron Theatre, Eden Court, Traverse Theatre, 7:84. She composed Anamchara with writer Alexander McCall Smith performed by Scottish Opera as part of the Commonwealth Games 2014. Recent projects include orchestral arrangements for Celtic Connections with Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis and the BBC SSO, original songs for POP-UP Duets with Janis Claxton Dance Company now on International tour. She won the CATS award 2017 for best Music and Sound for Wind Resistance and her album with Karine Polwart ‘Pocket of Wind resistance’ was nominated for best album at BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Pippa was classically trained on piano, violin and percussion from an early age. She completed her BMus, MA and PhD in composition at University of Birmingham. She lectures at Edinburgh University and guest lectures at RCS, Aberdeen and St Andrews University. She was Artist in Residence at the Scottish Parliament 2014.

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About this location

The twelve massive columns of the unfinished National Monument on Calton Hill are known as ‘Edinburgh’s Folly’ and ‘Edinburgh’s Disgrace’, and are said to represent ‘the pride and poverty of Scotland'. Although incomplete, the Monument is central to Edinburgh's reputation as the ‘Athens of the North'.

The Monument was intended to commemorate Scottish servicemen who died in the Napoleonic Wars. It was decided that the monument should be a temple structure based on the Parthenon. The plan was to set the building on a platform incorporating catacombs, where illustrious Scots would be laid to rest.

Work on the Monument started in 1826. It was estimated that £42,000 was required for the work and despite generous subscriptions, only £16,000 was raised. By 1829, funding was exhausted and the project was abandoned.

There have been many plans for the completion of the monument over the decades. However, it remains just as it was when the scaffolding came down in 1829.

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Quoted lines are from George Mackay Brown, Norman Maccaig, Iain Crichton Smith, and facts from ‘Ancestral Journeys: the peopling of Europe from the first venturers to the Vikings by Jean Manco’.

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