Iridescence, 2020 - Houston, Texas
Market Square Park
Houston Downtown Management District
Installed March 2020
Iridescence, 2020 - Houston, Texas
Media: Donated CD and DVD discs, monofilament, cable ties, aluminum, and hardware
Photo Credit: Thank you to photographer Joel Luks, The CKP Group for documenting the finished installation as seen in the images above
Looking back to descriptions of Market Square Park, www.houstontx.gov describes how, “Through the first century of its existence, Houston revolved around Market Square, bounded by the streets Preston, Milam, Travis, and Congress. The square was donated to the city in 1854 by Augustus Allen and was used as an open-air produce market, and the downtown business district grew up around it.”
This area of downtown Houston has changed significantly during the more than hundred and fifty years since the donation. The park is now an oasis of grass, trees, art, and shaded seating near a restaurant that welcomes visitors every day. In addition, the public enjoys the greenspace as a site of music and movie events that add entertainment and community opportunities to the downtown area.
It was an honor to design a temporary artwork for the canopy trellis at Market Square Park, adding to this oasis and sharing civic space neighboring the permanent sculptures by Paul Hester, Douglas Hollis, Richard Turner, Malou Flato, and James Surls. Thinking about the changing role of Market Square Park since 1854, my response to the site has yielded an artwork that combines the use of donated CD/DVDs with the architecture of the canopy trellis to highlight the benefits of redefining function and desire within a designated public space.
The abstract image of the mosaic breaks down into regimented sections, its swirling energies are contained within the series of structural beams that constitute the park canopy, thus referencing the creative, human activity of continually transforming urban space to meet current needs or desires, while preserving as much of the material history and landmark as possible. From the streets around the park, the addition of this fifty-foot artwork is almost invisible, but when viewed from underneath, the shiny spirals and rise/fall of the waves dominate the interior and mesmerize the viewer. Thus, when in the park and participating in the contemporary role of Market Square, this shiny ceiling accentuates the present and, at the same time, lifts up yesterday’s songs, movies, memories, and, in short, histories.
Inspired by waves of the Gulf of Mexico, city landfills, and black holes, the mosaic ceiling, titled Iridescence, features three vortex spirals of darker CDs and DVDs that are “painted” by using the colors of the discs that were no longer wanted and were likely heading to a landfill. The waves and the spirals compositionally extend past the frame of the trellis in a reference to the constant movement of time, which itself extends beyond our experience before and after us. The sources behind the shiny mosaic ranges from Microsoft software discs to someone's "Love Mix '98." These memories, like the use of the CD/DVD, and use of the Market Square Park itself has changed over time, but their potential to assess value and to create new roles continues to accrue.