News
Chapel Hill adding public art
CHAPEL HILL - It’s called “Exhale,” because in a sense that’s exactly what it will do. A sculpture designed by artist Mikyoung Kim for downtown Chapel Hill will emit a fine cloud of mist, spritzed upward and dispersed through a series of gently arced, folded stainless steel ribbons perforated with thousands of tiny holes.
The effect, for those standing next to the piece when it exhales, will be like being enveloped in a fine, cooling fog.
The town in 2005 selected Kim, an internationally known environmental artist and landscape architect, as the lead artist for the mixed-used project called 140 West. One percent of the budget for the development will fund public artwork on the site.
Last week Kim shared her revised final plans at a public meeting at the Chapel Hill library.
Kim said she focused on an environmentally sustainable idea because the building is meant to be certified under green construction standards. Rainwater will be collected in underground retention ponds, and some of that water will be released into the air.
The sculpture will stand on a public plaza on the west side of the lot facing Church Street.
The gently curved, corrugated piece will be 75 feet long and 3 feet high at either end, rising gradually to about 6 feet tall in the center.
Perforations will let light and the water mist through. Although the sculpture will be made of steel, Kim said it will look semitransparent. A series of LED lights will make the steel and fog glow.
“It’s more like a mist screen,” Kim said. “The perforations will get bigger the higher you go, so you’ll have greater transparency as you go up.”
The sculpture will be turned on only periodically. The misting element will be off altogether during the winter, go on for one minute every 10 minutes during spring and fall, and be on for a total of six hours a day in the summer, including two two-hour periods when it will mist continually.
“We want people to find something new every time they experience it,” Kim said. “Night will be different than day, winter different than summer.”
Aware of the sensitivity to drought in this area, Kim said the schedule will be flexible and that the sculpture will use only collected rainwater.
Kim and her team also designed an integrated pattern of dark paving stones and benches, all echoing the curve of the sculpture, that will form the plaza around the piece.
“I love her work, and I love downtown, so I think this is wonderful,” said downtown resident Maria Lopez-Ibanez. “It’s an opportunity to connect the east and west ends of Franklin Street, and it has great potential as a gathering place.”
By Dave Hart
