Whether it be Burning Man’s large-scale, psychedelic-hued mushrooms or Coachella’s towering teepees, a state-of-the-art installation becomes a powerful encapsulation of a space in time.
That is certainly true for San Francisco-based art collective FoldHaus, the visionary behind the former, that earlier this month brought their famed immersive, beautifully-lit oasis into mall complex Pacific Place, replete with an enormous pair of rainbow-hued mushrooms and a giant origami 4.5m-tall flower that stopped harried visitors in their tracks and momentarily transported their imaginations elsewhere.
Inspiring Hong Kongers to “enjoy an unexpected moment of discovery” is exactly the mission in mind for Joerg Student and Jesse Silver, the dynamic duo at the helm of this installation titled "LUMENous GARDEN" that also highlights the interconnectivity of our natural world—the inspiration behind much of the collective’s portfolio. Playing to "the tension between the mechanical aspects of our kinetic art, while making sure that the experience is simply joyful”, high-tech trigger sensors are installed throughout the work so that visitors play a part in transforming buds into full blooms and flat umbrella portobellos into bulbous caps via mere contact.
We sat down with the duo to find out more about what inspired this immersive experience.
What inspired the LUMENous GARDEN?
We originally designed our sculptures for the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The desert can be a very hostile environment and virtually nothing grows there, so we wanted to bring a little bit of life and beauty there. People love discovering flowers and mushrooms in nature, and we wanted to bring that same joy to the desert.
Our installations are particularly inspired by origami and the shapes we discover through folding and playing with paper. We are also inspired by nature and the detailed and beautiful patterns and symmetric structures that can be found in leaves, micro-organisms, or flowers.
How did this collaboration with Pacific Place come about?
Pacific Place decided to collaborate with FoldHaus as part of its continuing desire to inspire visitors to the mall and to offer them new perspectives on their surroundings; we brought our large-scale, interactive art from its Burning Man desert origin to the heart of Hong Kong for the first time, creating a surprising and delightful experience.
Nature often inspires FoldHaus’s art. How do you think art, nature and technology connect to each other?
FoldHaus likes to build experiences that are both poetic and robotic. We’re inspired by nature and origami and influenced by technology. We love playing with the perception of scale, and try to balance the tension between technology and nature.
In our technologically fast paced world, there are few moments where you can live, breathe, and delight in the poetry, beauty, and design of nature. Our art balances this modern tension between the technological world and our natural world, by using engineering and design to bring community, origami and nature to life.
Our sculptures are both simple and complex; their concept is easy to understand and enjoy for visitors, and the interaction is quite intuitive, but what makes them work is a rather complex mechanical and electronic core.
Why kinetic art and what kind of experience do you hope to bring to visitors?
We hope that our installation will help visitors slow down and take a break from their busy shopping day. The movement of our sculptures is slow and invites people to day dream. The invitation to interact and play with the sculptures allows people to discover their inner child, let go of what they might be focused on, and simply be in the moment.
What was the biggest challenge in creating the installation within the Pacific Place mall specifically, and what was the most rewarding aspect?
FoldHaus’ work is designed to be installed on the ground in an outdoor setting. While that is a more challenging environment in terms of wind and rain, the ground allows us to anchor the structures into the soil, and to run power and data lines concealed between the pieces. For an indoor installation, we are grateful for Art Partners Hong Kong in having created a series of mounds made from steel, wood, and artificial grass. These mounds not only visually unite the pieces, but anchor them and hide the power and data lines required to run them.
Because the mushrooms in particular take up a lot of space, they must be fully disassembled for transport, and require a highly specialized assembly process. Because of this, we brought a crew of FoldHaus team members experienced with the build process to Hong Kong to do the installation and solve for challenges that may arise.
Clearly, the context of Burning Man and Pacific Place couldn’t be more different. One is in the middle of the desert, the other one is a luxury shopping mall in one of the world’s most spectacular urban cities and anyone can come see the art for free. We hope that we can bring some of that playful and experimental spirit of Burning Man to Pacific Place. We are excited to reach a wide range of audiences here. Also, for the first time, visitors will be able to see the art from above.
How do you think art correlates to a home? What art decorates your home?
The art that decorates our home is mostly, well, decorative – static, beautiful pieces we have collected, made, found, or been given. This is, however, quite different from the art we create – our pieces are inspired by small things that fit in a home, such as origami or flowers, but we scale them up ten-fold in size, and put focus on making the art interactive and experiential.
Describe your favourite colour palette.
Joerg’s favorite color palette is black, but for our art our favorite color is rainbow. Due to the translucency of the materials we use and the fact that we use light as color, our choices of colors are limited, but rotating through the rainbow creates the biggest visual effect.
A designer or artist who’s been particularly inspiring to you recently?
The drawings of Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist, philosopher, marine biologist, and artist who created exquisite drawings of microscopic species, including drawing the radiolaria that inspired our most recent and ambitious art installation, RadiaLumia.
What is one design or home decorating tip you live by?
When choosing an item for our home, we pay attention to its quality and imagine how it will age, aiming to only add items that will last for a long time.
Favourite travel destination?
A lot of us enjoy the outdoors as a travel destination. Our backyard in California offers many beautiful options, such as Yosemite National Park.
