Current, Columbus, OH, 2023
DESCRIPTION
Artist Janet Echelman’s vibrantly colored floating sculpture Current weaves together threads of local history as it connects Columbus’s urban street grid with its river waterfront to create a tapestry expressing the city’s unique history.
Sculpted with 78 miles of twine crafted into a half million knots, the soft fiber sculpture traverses 229 feet along Gay Street across High Street. Its soft curves move gently with the ever-changing choreography of wind currents. Its arched form glows at night recalling the multi-generational role innovation has played in Columbus, from its early adoption of street arches illuminated by gas lighting after the civil war which was followed by electrical lighting before the turn of the last century, to the generator of knowledge and technology it has become today.
Current invites viewers to pause and contemplate their own sensory experience and interconnectedness to both local urban history and the larger evolution of humanity in relation to our physical world.
Max length: 229 feet
Max height: 126 feet
Max width: 83 feet
Total knots: 512,460
Total length of twine: 78.5 miles
Total weight: 714 lb
MATERIALS AND SIZE
Fiber, Buildings and Sky combined with Colored Lighting. Fibers are braided with nylon and UHMWPE (Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene)
Dimensions of net: 184 ft. length x 49 ft. width x 64 ft. depth
CREDITS
Art: Janet Echelman
Studio Echelman Project Manager: Melissa Henry
Studio Echelman Design Team: Daniel Smith, Adam Burke
Sculpture Engineering: SOM San Francisco: Alessandro Beghini, Nicole Wang
Client: Edwards Companies; now in the permanent collection of the Columbus Museum of Art.
Photography: Janet Echelman, Bruce Petschek, Mike Cairns, Ryan Ransom
Videography: Bruce Petschek
LOCATION
Intersection of Gay St. and High St., Columbus, OH
PRESS
