Floating World
Residing in a precarious water borne environment, Stephen
Talasnik’s “Floating World," a monolithic site specific sculpture located
within the Monet Pool at Denver Botanic Gardens, evokes the spirit of the surrealist landscape and skeletal underwater Jules Verne Metropolis. It is an installation that explores
contrasting states: that which is visible on the water surface with a
mysterious civilization living within the depths of the blackened reflecting
pool.
The title,
referencing Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, “An Artist of the Floating World” examines
the convergence of aquatic botany with intuitively engineered architecture to
evoke an otherworldly landscape that synthesizes the contemplative serenity of
a Buddhist rock garden with the chaotic world of the unknown. Talasnik’s
installation employs water as a visual metaphor to inspire both a greater
understanding of existence and truth with the unlimited capacity of the
wandering mind to explore unfettered imagination.
Presented in clusters or “species," viewers are invited to explore geometrically
developed structures that reference micro-organisms and growth patterns. The
groups of bamboo objects depict the patterning of urban sprawl as well as the
intimacy of botany’s visual tactility.
"Floating World," installed upon a ¼ acre pool from May 5 to
November 4, 2012, is part of a larger exhibition at Denver Botanic Gardens
devoted to a celebration of bamboo.
http://stephentalasnik.com/
http://stephentalasnik.com/
