CLOSER EMERGING

Location: Utah State University Easter
Client: Utah Division of Arts & Museums

The concept for the finalist public art proposal is based on an analogy between natural resources as a product of emergent geologic and other processes, and learning as the product of emergent knowledge and ideas. The art-space is comprised of two layers: the “emergent foothill” and the “emergent seams”.  The “emergent foothill” is a sloping amphitheater sculpted from earth to form an embracing crescent-shaped volume.The second layer is the “emergent seams”—sculptural seating elements that emerge from the foothill amphitheater. Like coal seams running horizontally across geologic strata, basalt stone seating elements emerge from the right and left slopes of the amphitheater; some seemingly buried deeper in the earth than others.