Ekene Ijeoma on Trying to Portray Hidden Things frieze.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from frieze.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The illuminated installation encourages communal calm and hope amid crisis
New York-based Ekene Ijeoma – artist, designer, academic and founder of the Poetic Justice group at MIT Media Lab – has delivered an immersive installation in Downtown Brooklyn titled Breathing Pavilion. Consisting of 20 illuminated, inflatable, 2.7m-high columns arranged in a circle, the pavilion aims to provide a sanctuary at a time marked by the continuing crises of the Covid-19 pandemic and systemic racial injustice in the United States.
Using computational design, the two-tone columns slowly modulate in brightness to illustrate a deep breathing technique designed to bring calm. Visitors are invited to breathe in time with the changing light. ‘Between the ongoing struggles in the racial and political movements in the United States and the Covid-19 pandemic, it can be difficult to find the time and space to breathe deeply and rest well,’ says Ijeoma.
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Non-profit organization SaveArtSpace has connected with independent curators Anne Verhallen and Daria Borisova to launch an outdoor exhibition on billboards across the United Kingdom. Entitled “RESTORATION: NOW or NEVER,” the public installment aims to bring attention to the world’s climate crisis while presenting artworks outdoors arriving at a time when arts spaces and cultural institutions have restricted viewing due to COVID-19.
Participating artists include Stefan Bruggemann, Zhang Huan, Tabita Rezaire, Coco Capitán, Wang Yuyang, Fred Tomaselli, Formafantasma, Olive Allen and Khari Turner. The artworks, which will vary in composition, will be presented across prominent London advertisement spaces, like billboards, kiosks and bus shelters, for one month.
Inflatable pillars pulse with light to encourage deep breathing in Brooklyn
Breathing Pavilion by artist Ekene Ijeoma is a temporary installation in Brooklyn made of illuminated inflatable pillars that invite people to breathe along with its pulsing lights.
Breathing Pavilion encompasses a 30-foot (nine-metre) circle of 20 nine-foot (three-metre) inflatable pillars held up by concrete bases, positioned around a raised bed of marble chips on a square in Brooklyn s Cultural District in New York.
Breathing Pavilion by Ekene Ijeoma
Ijeoma created the meditative public artwork as a response to years of political turmoil, the coronavirus pandemic and systematic racism. The only thing that was certain was that we d still be fighting for Black lives, said Ijeoma.
Ekene Ijeoma s latest public installation reflects on social inequality to create a place of sanctuary at a time of intense hardship and loss archinect.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archinect.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.