Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - 9:50 AM

OOS 21-6: Sculpture in trees

Bruce Chao, Rhode Island School of Design

Sculpture in Trees, refers to an ongoing project begun in 2000 when I trained as an arborist to engage the forest canopy as a working site for visual experiments about nature as cultural perception.  By selectively implanting the wild forest (second growth) with anomalous materials and orderly intentions, I intend that the inevitable contrast between primeval and mundane creates a felt dialectic-- one that fundamentally questions place, context, expectation, and more.  Initially startled by unlikely versions of nature while visiting Japan, I strive to extend that wonder by taking lumber, PVC plumbing pipe, construction foam, and cable ties, aloft to make temporary structures that evoke stadium seating, precarious walkways, arboreal prosthesis.   Or I choose to create different versions of straight lines in the forest, such as 7 tree-top cisterns rigged to splash at random intervals along a quarter mile heading.   I develop strategies to engage the senses in ways that are at once consonant and dissonant with surrounding nature to cause mindfulness and consideration.  I intend to present a variety of this work as a visual presentation.