View
A 2-leg steel and glass bench framing the microbiology of Randall's Island, NY and the Manhattan Skyline.
58"x36"x24"
Corten Steel, white maple, glass, silicone, Randall's Island mud & water, eggs, newspaper, chalk
Commissioned by NYC Parks
Randall's Island, NYC, 2013
View, is a public bench that frames both the human industry of the Manhattan skyline and the microbial industry of Randall’s Island Park’s Little Hell Gate Inlet salt marsh.
As bacteria can divide every twenty minutes, they can provide an observable model system for us to contemplate how patterns of reproduction, consumption, and waste have feedback on the very ecosystem upon which the culture depends. In this pairing of the micro and the macro world, a viewer may rest and contemplate how microbial cultures synthesize and recycle life within a finite ecosystem.
All photos taken by Benjamin Heller
Check out my process blog posts for this NYC parks project:
- Site Selection
- Rough Cut White Maple
- Sketch Up
- Cleaning up the White Maple
- San Serif Steels Stamps for making artist statement in the white maple
- Mud Collection
- On Site Installation
- Day 1
- Art Opening
- Day 4
- Pinks at Day 12
- Tagging the Art!
- Art for Napping
- Derick, a re-visitor
- Colors at 3 months old!
- Bacteria make it to the Silver Screen of Lincoln Center!
- Fall Coloration near closing