Before I had identified environmental awareness as my social issue of interest, I began this term’s creative, intellectual journey by exploring the work of another artist, Ned Kahn. Ned Kahn is a modern environmental sculpture artist who creates interactive artwork in order to visualize the invisible phenomena in nature². His work emphasizes the raw, unaltered forces of the world we live in, while simultaneously creating physically and psychologically interactive displays.

 

 

Perception can be seen as the interaction of perspective and awareness; Kahn aims to alter this perception of natural phenomena by enriching our perspective and heightening our awareness of the world. I found Ned Kahn’s focus on portraying the elemental processes in nature, to be very interesting and inspiring – this theme, combined with my lifelong fascination with natural patterns and designs, directed my own focus towards the recurring patterns that occur in nature.

One of the key underlying themes, evident in Ned Kahn’s artwork, one of our course readings (“Scientific Looking, Looking at Science”³), and this course as a whole, is the visualization of the invisible – allowing people to “see the unseen.” In Ned Kahn’s work, this takes the form of recreating natural processes, especially weather-related patterns, in artificial settings. Kahn’s sculptures include “Wind Fence”^[2][4] (a skeletal metal structure located on the University of Oregon campus, that is adorned with hundreds of thin metal plates that move with the wind currents), and others, such as “Rain Oculus,” “Fire Vortex,” “Sonic Pool,” “Encircled Stream,” and “Prism Tunnel.”²

 

 

 

 

 

 

These visually and intellectually interactive sculptures successfully portray invisible natural processes in a thought-provoking, visible manner. Not only are Ned Kahn’s sculptures visually intriguing, but they also encapsulate deeper meanings, including environmental protection and awareness, and “seeing the unseen.”³ Kahn’s own artwork is strongly inspired by his childhood experiences, and in particular, by his visit to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA as a young adult⁵. His exposure to unconventional, “scientific art,” at this museum caught his attention, and inspired him to pursue the art of portraying natural phenomena. Through recreating these phenomena with urban sculpture art, Kahn strives to provoke curiosity and a sense of wonder in his audience.

In my own project, I incorporate the themes of environmental awareness, “visualizing the invisible,” and the portrayal natural phenomena (in my case, the phenomena of interest are recurring patterns in nature) into a small-scale sculpture constructed of recycled mirrors. Just as Ned Kahn aims to provoke viewers’ curiosity and alter their perspectives of natural processes, I strive to communicate the crossover of art and science, the importance of environmental awareness, and the interconnectivity of the universe through the portrayal of natural patterns in the form of three-dimensional sculpture art.