This eight-part work is an evolving portrait, a metamorphosis of the head of a Maori into that of Highland Scotsman. Or rather, a pastiche of an anthropological engraving of a Maori mutates into a cliché of a 'typical' Scotsman. The Maori, whose tattoos are a visual echo of the lines in the head and beard of Blind Ossian, represents the 'noble savage' and echoes Ossian over again. The head is set not in a ruined landscape, but on a viewing screen. The objects that make up the set refer to ideas about authenticity, origin and ancestry. They are coated with a fine layer of grey dust. A fallout covers a world where only discreet fragments of former life remains. Colvin issues a stark warning of what an over-zealous concern with issues of origins and racial authenticity can lead to.

The Maori head is eventually replaced by that of the Highlander. Strewn around the ground are digital and analogue photographs of a portrait of James Macpherson. Normand writes: '…the various personas of cultural identity meld and mutate. Simultaneously the symbols of national character and distinctiveness reveal both their diversity and their universality. Hence, the figure of 'savage' Ossian folds into the 'noble' Maori, Burns and Scott become two kinds of 'Blind Harry' [ Colvin's working title for this piece which refers to Harry Lauder and the traditional music-hall Scotsman] who is now a composite poet, entertainer, and cartoon. And all are kin and companion to the mysterious, controversial figure of James Macpherson'.

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