(Behind) You!, 2018
Co-creator, ConstructionFort Washington, Pennsylvania
(Behind) You ! is an interactive, mixed-media, and site-specific sculpture created to inspire a new and deepened appreciation of its outdoor setting, and to provide differentiated and mediatized perspectives of the surrounding flora. With its embedded thunder-drums, the sculpture uses steel springs to capture and represent, by way of auditory sonorous vibrations, the movement of the tall grasses, winds, flexible mirrors, and living interactions the piece receives. Additionally, we placed plaques around the sculpture displaying laser-etched line drawings of local plant life and interpertive information about each variety. The piece is made to deteriorate in environmental conditions over the course of its five month exhibition.
The title is both a literal plea for the viewer to look around (outside of) themselves, and furthermore serves as a figurative declaration of the rippling environmental impact we each leave in our wake. It also serves as a comment on the transition of our world from Holocene to Anthropocene — that we are moving forward implies that we are leaving something behind.
(Behind) You ! was commissioned by Germantown Academy for the group exhibition “Woods to Water: Temporal Sculpture on the Land” at the The Preserve, a humanmade nature preserve in the watershed area of the Wissahickon Creek in Fort Washington, PA.
Photography by Adam McGrath.