Tunnelled Time, 2018
Public Art Proposal for the Whimsical Garden in Lions Park, for the City of Port Coquitlam
collaboration with Pippa Lattey (credit: models made by Pippa Lattey)
Tunnelled time encourages visitors to consider the time scales of plants and decay: stretching unseen both into the past and future. There are vast worlds hidden, like ant nests, with their underground passages twisting and leading through a megalopolis that is inconceivable to our human minds. Tunnelled Time recognizes these world exist, and responds with respect and awe. A decomposing log stands upright, while others rests on its side; both are clad in a lush growth: ferns, fungus and wet green moss. They are surrounded by whimsical stainless steel forms, lines that reach out of the earth in twists and turns, with bulbous deposits along their upward paths. A well trodden pathway leads around the pieces, nestled among familiar low-lying indigenous plants. The abstract bulbs inspire the imagination to think of things indeterminate; they may develop into shapes that are reminiscent of archeological digs, fossils, or curiosities found when digging in the garden.
This sculpture encourages views of all ages to look up and imagine downward what non-human life can tell us about curiosity, playfulness, and surprise. Tunnelled Time integrates itself with and supports the ecology of the park through the use of indigenous plants. All forms of life can interact with this structure: it can be a source of food, or a home for insects, or a resting perch for birds. The steel forms will glint in the sun, bead with water from the rain, and constantly exist in harmony and contrast with the ongoing growth and decay around and underneath them.
