Earthtime 1.26 Munich

“I’m excited to install Earthtime 1.26 Munich in the historic Odeonsplatz, where past and present intertwine to create a dynamic urban now. My artwork reflects an interconnectedness of opposites – flexibility with strength, earth with sky, things we can control with the forces beyond us. I invite viewers to pause beneath my sculpture for a moment to contemplate our interconnectedness with each other and our planet, and to become aware of our own sensory experience.” – Janet Echelman

Between August 11th and October 3rd, 2021, Janet Echeman’s Earthtime 1.26 sculpture will be exhibited at Munich’s Odeonsplatz, presented by Mercedes-Benz.

The Earthtime sculpture series seeks to heighten our awareness about the way we are all interconnected with one another and our planet.

These sculptures serve as symbols of interconnectedness – composed of countless intertwined fibers. Each time a single knot moves in the wind, the location of every other knot in the sculpture’s surface is changed in an ever unfolding dance of human-made creation with the forces of nature beyond our control.

To create the sculptural form, Echelman works with teams both inside and outside her studio. These include architects, designers, and model-makers in the studio, as well as an external team of aeronautical and structural engineers, computer scientists, lighting designers, landscape architects, and a fabrication team.

Inside Echelman’s studio, the physical form of Earthtime 1.26 was digitally modelled with inspiration from a scientific data set describing a single geological occurrence in one part of the world (a 2010 earthquake in Chile) that caused ripple effects around the globe, which sped up the earth’s daily rotation. The number in the title refers to a measurement of time, as the earth’s day was shortened by 1.26 microseconds.

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