Meeting Eames Detmetrios

As told by TCW Director Kasim Ali-Khan – Last weekend had 2 personal highlights. The first was winning nearest the pin at Wakehurst, a birdie and the promise of beer. The second requires a little more explaining…

EAMES DEMETRIOS needs to be recognised as a global and interstellar traveller, poet and story teller. In the world of CS Lewis there are fictional characters appealing to children with a parallel meaning to adults, inviting the symbolism of Aslan as Christ and the world of the stars and constellations. 2 layers operating in a mesh of fiction and symbolism. Eames has created a world with a series of “markers” in 127 locations around the world in remote places, under water and in more popular spots, where stories unfolds with a tint of local flavour and characters with creatures from the deep depths of his mind. Welcome to Kcymaerxthaere. Eames has overlaid “Earth” with his parallel world of design and creativity having no boundaries to the imagination of form and function. Throw in characters, stories and places in Kcymaerxthaere where “Nobunaga” links “Alcibiades” at the “Adalanta Desert” across the parallel universe with the current geography of the world and you have a vivid world of stories and possibilities.

So there I was in a place, known in our world as Kangaroo Valley, a tranquil spot owned by Designer and Sculptor Alex Ritchie with Edward de Bono guardian, Amanda Mobbs, in the middle of the adventure to lay another piece of the world of Kcymaerxthaere here in our back yard. So the 128th marker was laid amongst a frenzy or formwork and setting concrete, with 1541 words ( not quite infinity less 29) a team of enthusiastic pilgrims just being a part of a story not yet written. As the shadows lengthened and the mossies tore into their work, the last letters were pressed and the crowning beer drank to a good days work. Eames indulged us with 20 minutes of his world and the vision for these markers and the promise to set out more in this land “we” call Australia. Not sure what I got out of this experience apart for an appreciative and commemorative shot glass for my participation, but I would not have traded the day and the experience of being a part of something important. One day the places and the characters will become household names like Aslan and the White Witch and when I take my grandkids to the marker in kangaroo valley and probably others, I can say I was a part of this adventure.