Description
2016, Wollongong Botanic Gardens, Australia
Artists: David Hashimoto, Gabrielle Bates
Stainless Steel Super Mirror nr. 8 AISI 316 – Thickness 2,0 mm
Illumina-trope is designed to reflect the 2016 WBASA theme, ‘Shared Values, Shared Future’.
The freestanding outdoor sculpture will appear to grow out from its setting in Wollongong Botanic Gardens. Cantilevered from a steel base, three botanical vines gently twist around each other in a unified direction until they bifurcate and taper off.
Illumina-trope takes its title from a blend of words: ‘Illuminate’–to light up; ‘tropism’–the turning of an organism in a particular direction in response to stimulus; and ‘trope’–a recurrent theme or motif.
Ideas and values only exist if minds are present to absorb them. Working symbolically with this notion, the three vines represent distinct entities, minds or communities, each twisting close to the other but never touching. The vines are fabricated with multi-faceted surfaces of polished stainless steel, a luminous mirrored finish that causes reflected light to bounce back and forth between the vines. This exchange represents modes of communication that are beyond direct physical contact. And while the vines may twist and turn, their overall movement is in the same direction, just like tropism, moving together toward the same future of shared values.
