For Meta Gallery
2015.08

Fountain IX is a site-specific fountain for the garden of Meta Gallery created through the re-assembling of materials commonly found in public spaces. The work adopts the mechanical properties of a traditional water feature found in Zen gardens designed to startle wild animals and creatively repurposes it towards absurdist ends. Water trickles into the upper end of a container and accumulates, eventually causing the container to tip over and dump out water. The heavier end of the tube then falls back, making a sharp sound, and the cycle repeats. Fountain IX irreverently maps our desires of contemplation and tranquility onto the surrounding urban landscape.

Garden historians David and Michigo Young describe the concept of East Asian gardens as "though inspired by nature, it is an interpretation rather than a copy; it should appear to be natural, but it is not wild." This navigation of authentic and fabricated spaces captures our complex relationships to both built and natural environments. Fountain is an ongoing series of site-specific fountains and man-made garden-like environments that explore this multilayered dynamic, address social constructs of urban water works and play with our idealized concepts of the natural world.