Contour

Description: A large triangle juts out from the top of the Capital Hill Library entrance. Descending from its sides are vertical steel mesh screens. Thirty-six different types of evergreen and deciduous vines climb up the structure, intertwining with each other and creating a natural wall. Additionally, low-energy, long-life fluorescent lights are located in the two feet of space between the brick walls of the building and the steel structure, illuminating the plants from the inside.  Alessandrini, a lighting artist, meant for the elements of nature and light to work together in order to create a unique environment which literally bridges the gap between the exterior world and the interior of the library.

 

Artist Statement: The world, the real, the apparently real and the unreal, is the source and background to my inquiry for my creations. Through manipulation of physical spaces, light, and digital media, I design and build ephemeral, controlled environments that people enter rather than observe from a distance. Within a field of mediated experiences, awareness of being emerges. The body moves in a flowing state of sensorial alterations and, opened by possibilities, meanings develop.  The Capitol Hill Library is my first permanent work with light. Light surrounds the building sandwiched between brick walls and the vertical garden, a green screen of plants that bloom in different times of the year. Together, nature and light augment the perception of a building that is both library and garden, and never looks the same. 

 Location: Capitol Hill Branch Library, 425 Harvard Avenue East, Seattle WA 98102