through March 2, 2008
Sponsored by the Loeb Fellowship Program, Harvard University
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/professional/loeb_fellowship/
Reception: Thursday, February 7, 2008, 5pm – 6pm, open to public
Press contact: Melanie Peterson, 617-566-0770, [email protected] , http://www.echelman.com
Janet Echelman is an artist who sculpts public space.
A Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design this year, Echelman creates living, breathing sculpture that responds to and acts in unison with the physical environment, with particular focus on wind, rain, light, and shadow drawing. For each of her sculpture sites, she considers the visual and cultural language and material of the place, the historical ways of making things, and the current way that people move through the space.
This exhibition presents three recent projects, one built, and two currently in construction.
She Changes is a 160-foot-tall sculpture made of knotted GORE TENARA® architectural fiber was completed on the coastline of Porto, Portugal in 2005. The sculpture makes the patterns and choreography of wind of visible to the human eye. Two new projects currently in construction are the result of collaborations with landscape architects, architects, and civil, mechanical, aeronautical, and environmental engineers. For the Richmond Skating Oval, a site for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, her work takes the form a water garden that remediates the run-off water from the adjacent 2-acre roof of the new facility. Echelman’s shapes are “drawn” in bubbles that aerate and help clean the water along with native plants. At the water’s surface, meandering floating wooden footbridges bridges are painted bright red. As visitors walk through, they encounter above them suspended “Sky Lanterns” which are wind-responsive and glow at night. The third project is for the 2-block new Civic Space in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, which creates a dialogue between desert flora and the weather formations of desert skies. This commission was recently the subject of political controversy and resulted in a groundswell of public support http://www.newsweek.com/id/82186 .
Echelman’s related drawings, paintings, editions, and maquettes are represented by Florence Lynch Gallery, 531-539 West 25th St, New York, NY.
More information on Echelman’s sculpture can be found at http://www.echelman.com
For more information go to: http://www.echelman.com
