seeing: forgetting (2017)
A large-scale and site-specific installation utilizing over 42,000 feet of orange monofilament.
Currently on view at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania (USA)

​This work was largely inspired by the vast, open space it occupies. The foyer of College Hall at Montgomery County Community College is a massive, yet open space with a 40-ft ceiling and three walls made almost entirely of glass panels, making it visually open to the natural environment beyond; as a result, the amount and quality of light changes dramatically throughout the day. I wanted to create a piece responsive to the conditions of its site, both in construction and material. My primary aim was to interrupt and connect that openness without intruding on it, to create something that would be simultaneously massive in scale yet not readily noticeable.

The massiveness of the work comes from its scale: it consists of a torsional web of 600, 70-ft strands of monofilament, a total of 42,000 feet spanning the 70-foot diagonal length of the space. Its unobtrusiveness comes from material and placement: the very thin, orange monofilament has a property that makes it difficult to see in bright light (especially the entire length of the 70ft span at once), and it is placed ten to twenty feet overhead, which removes it from direct view. The result is a work that is not only inspired by the unique form and conditions of the environment in which it sits, but one that can hardly exist outside of it, certainly not in its current form. My hope is that just as the space frames the work, the work itself reframes the space for the viewer.

Special thanks to Dianne Zotter-Mill and Patrick Rodgers for all their invaluable help to which I’m indebted, and without which the project would not have been possible. I'm also thankful to Montgomery County Community College for approving and supporting the project.
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Videos

The installation process took a team of three people almost ten hours and required a mechanical lift to reach the thirty feet required on one side. Below are two time-lapse videos from two different angles. The third video was produced by the college a few days after the installation was complete.
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Time-lapse 1

Time-lapse 2

Interviews & Reactions

Photos

Below is a collection of photos taken during and after installation day. The scale of the work makes it nearly impossible to capture in a single shot.