38.
Sarah Haviland
Breathing the World
Sarah Haviland
Breathing the World
- Steel, wire mesh, mixed media (recycled plastic bags and construction mesh)
- 120” x 84” x 78”/ est. 60 lbs.
- Installation: Steel cable wires wrapped and secured with steel D quick-links at cross-points, clipped to birds at strategic balance points, ladder or lift needed to reach center greenhouse crossbeams. No maintenance required.
For Lyndhurst’s greenhouse, I propose a large, silver, openwork bird with colorful hanging tail and rider, suspended as if flying from the girders of the grassy right-side avenue of the historic structure. The most prominent bird will be a graceful egret carrying a female rider, accompanied by two or three smaller birds with outstretched wings soaring around her. The birds will be defined with lightweight steel auto break-line, partially sheathed with expanded steel construction mesh that glitters in sunlight. Their tails and other details will be accented with bright recycled plastic construction mesh, creating a dramatic vision and reminding us of the intensity and importance of our historic and mythic connection to birds across the planet.
Sarah Haviland is a sculptor and installation artist whose recent work focuses on cross-cultural human-bird imagery and the environment. She was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship for creative research in Taiwan in 2018-2019. Her abstract-figurative sculptures and public art installations have been exhibited widely in parks, museums, galleries, educational institutions, and healthcare settings, including Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ; Pratt Sculpture Park in Brooklyn; the Flatiron Prow Art Space and NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan; and the National Marine Museum in Taiwan. Other awards include a Creativity Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, fellowships from the New York and New Jersey State Arts Councils, and residencies at Sculpture Space, Skowhegan, and Yaddo. Sarah Haviland was born in Kansas City, Kansas, grew up in New Jersey, and earned a BA from Yale University and an MFA from Hunter College. She teaches at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and maintains a studio in the Lower Hudson Valley.