The Arts Catalyst and Landscape+Arts Network Services
POETIC COSMOS OF THE BREATH - Tomas Saraceno
Sat 22 September 2007, dawn
Gunpowder Park, Sewardstone Road, Waltham Abbey, Essex
After a summer of waiting for a day that all partners could all make and with fine weather, our last chance was the weekend of the 22/23 September. We were lucky and had a truly breathtaking dawn event on the Saturday morning. Around 40 people turned up for the event - plus a few passing early morning dog walkers - surpassing all our expectations. It was a truly breath-taking event.
A report on the morning appeared on Michaela Crimmin's RSA's Art & Ecology blog:
"On a recent Saturday morning I experienced one of the great rewards for working with artists. I got up before dawn to go to Gunpowder Park to see the latest work by Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno. ... Trained as an architect, Saraceno’s work poses the idea of floating cities. At the invitation of Arts Catalyst he brought a giant inflatable to the early morning autumn mists of Essex. It lay there, a huge circle of sheeting on the ground, held down by sandbags. A small group of lucky, lucky people were there in the dew. Slowly we helped the giant fill with air and grow as the sun came up and saw it brought to life, the colours of the foil which forms part of the material spectacularly colourful as the sun reflected off it.
"This is why I work with artists – this is a serious, magical, unique, positive experience. This is invigoration for the Green movement, for the Climate Change lobby, for the scientists pouring over statistics and charts. Thanks to Saraceno and to Arts Catalyst we who were there will remember this morning for the rest of our lives.
Poetic Cosmos of the Breath is a collaboration between The Arts Catalyst and Gunpowder Park.
The project was inspired by the dome created by Dominic Michaelis in 1975, for the film Hu-Man.
Funded by the Arts Council England and the Henry Moore Foundation
