Windsongs public art installation and flags both feature in the public art carnivale at Avalon. Created by Suzanne Davey, Christina Frank and Lisa Marshall they feature reconfigured discarded umbrellas and together they speak of fragility and the power of transformation.
Suzane Davey, Christina frank, Lisa Marshall Windsongs public art installation, mixed media 350 x550 x 400cm
WIND SONGS is a public art project created by Suzanne Davey, Christina Frank and Lisa Marshall for Art in Odd Places Australia 2013 exhibited 14-15 September Dee Why Beach, 21-22 September Manly Beach.
WIND SONGS is a dynamic, colourful installation that uses an everyday object, the humble umbrella, and transforms it from the ordinary into the extraordinary. A mass of umbrellas have been de-constructed and re-configured in new and surprising ways. The ‘fly away’ work responds directly to the elemental landscape of Manly and Dee Why. Floating in the sea breeze it sings songs about fragility, struggles and the power of transformation.
Wind Songs Dee Why Beach
Wind Songs Manly
Project Rationale: Umbrellas are utilitarian objects charged with memories and a myriad of metaphorical possibilities. Nostalgia for summer holidays at the beach, fresh sea breezes, life saving flags, experiences of wild storms, rain and wind and our basic human need for shelter and protection are all evoked by the humble umbrella.
Umbrellas are also delicate and fragile objects. In strong winds umbrellas have a tendency to ‘fly away’ and de-construct. On windy days at the beach runaway umbrellas cartwheel dangerously across the sand. On wild wet days locations such as the Manly Corso are littered with discarded rain umbrellas, sad and forlorn, inside out and broken.
The installation is a large colourful, geometric canopy/banner/structure constructed from found and collected umbrellas and arranged together in a tessellated pattern. The installation responds directly to sea breezes, creates bold shadows patterns on surfaces and creatively expresses the umbrella’stendency to ‘fly away’ in response to wind. Through its dynamic composition, its re-construction and final transformation of multiple umbrellas into a new form Wind Songscan remind the viewer of…….
the fragility of life
being in the moment, the brevity of life
everyday struggles: weathering storms, the whirl of life, the risk of the things we depend on de-constructing and flying away.
transformation and re-ordering eg: moving through major personal changes or crises
memories and nostalgia for summer holidays, childhood, beach days
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