CHORUS, 2023
Photography: Merik Goma
Chorus, 2023
Aluminum and Imron automotive paint, 12’ h x 9’ w x 9’ d
Commissioned by Lighthouse Works for Fishers Island; fabrication by Versteeg Art Fabricators.
May 2023 - April 2024
https://lighthouseworks.us/public-art/rachelle-dang-chorus
A Garden of Promise and Dissent
The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art
November 2024 - November 2025
https://thealdrich.org/exhibitions/a-garden-of-promise-and-dissent
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/arts/design/american-museums-galleries-art-guide.html
When I began envisioning Chorus, I wondered how to create something that is incomplete; something awaiting activation and eventual completion by the natural surroundings and a community of visitors. Part of the challenge is to heighten the sensory experience of an already beautiful location, yet to add a new perspective. I considered the performance of an ecosystem and its countless species taking part in large and small dramas all around us, all the time. I thought about native grasses and visualized a tapestry of interwoven roots connecting sky and earth. I imagined these plants as an ensemble of performers. Beneath us, the roots of native grasses extend 10 to 20 feet deep to restore and regenerate the earth. One of many examples is beach grass, which stabilizes the dunes on the Atlantic coast.
I took pencil and scissors, and I began cutting shapes from yellow construction paper, assembling a small-scale model. However, I wanted to experience the roots at their actual length, so I created large ink drawings by attaching a 3ft stick to a brush and drawing with ink onto a large roll of rosin paper taped to the floor. I photographed the ink drawings and then composited them digitally to create a more complex netting of roots. The fabricators used my digital files, including scans of the model, to cut the aluminum sheet metal and retain the presence of my hand, the scissors, and the brush. I wanted to suggest the magic of hand-cut paper construction at giant size. It’s a theater of wonder without boundaries, extending in all directions. Visitors are invited to take a seat, to take a role, to contemplate a world of relations.
Photography: Dave Dja