Inspiration: the Seed Cathedral and Pae White's mobiles

I came across The Seed Cathedral (Thomas Heatherwick) while searching for seed head images, I found the building inspirational and beautiful. The outside looks softly playful, while the inside is intensely detailed and interesting. Feted as a "house of worship for biodiversity at Shanghai's 2010 World Expo" it is constructed of 60,000 light-funnelling fibre-optic rods, each had one or more seeds implanted at its tip. The optic rods were designed to respond to external light conditions, so that movements of clouds and changes of light outside are experienced inside as changes in luminosity. (Time Photos, 2010). I would have loved to have photographed it, experienced the changes of light and detailed seed heads.

Photo's taken from Time Photos online (accessed 21 November 2011).

I also love this work by Heatherwick, a site specific sculpture built above a pool in the atrium of the Welcome Trust building in London. Inspired by the space, the artist explored ways of capturing the dynamic shapes of falling liquids. He experimented with pouring molten metal into water, which created extraordinary and complex forms, no two experiments produced the same results.

I think its a beautiful sculpture and a clever use of space.



It reminds me of Pae White's exhibition at Milton Keynes gallery in 2006. The papercut mobiles, made from cardboard cut-outs, suspended from nylon thread, moved with the disruption of air as you walked by. I thought they were colourful, playful and dramatic as they moved about. They were a very welcome break from a miserable winter's day!







Pae White pictures from Milton Keynes gallery http://www.mkgallery.org/exhibitions/white/.

(post originally posted in 2011)