For some indulging in a sneaky souvenir can help keep those memories fresh when the holiday is over. A cocktail glass from Vegas, a Do Not Disturb sign in Italian from your hotel door, a fluffy white bathrobe from a Singapore luxury room. You're not supposed to take them but people do and go on to live guilt free for the rest of their lives.
But taking a piece of Ancient Egypt home with you? Maybe not as easy to live with.
Artist Andy Holden's art installation, The Pyramid Piece and his Return of the Pyramid Piece video, deal with just that guilt. Holden stole a rock from the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Giza when he was a young, light-fingered urchin. Years later in 2008 he returned the piece to its rightful place.
He then launched into knitting a massive replica of the stone. The giant-size replica, machine-knitted in a gruelling process that caused the breaking of two knitting machines, conveys Holden's feeling of peering up in awe at the giant pyramids themselves all those years ago.
The free Art Now: Andy Holden Pyramid Piece and Return of the Pyramid Piece exhibition is open 9 January - 10 April 2010 at Tate Britain, London.
Go and see it. I did. It's a wonder to behold but may make your joints ache in stitching sympathy when you see all that knitting.
