Uplifted Ground at the Austin Airport is complete!
The project titled Uplifted Ground embodies several interrelated concepts including geometries and transitions based on local geological formations, Texas minerals, and patterning from aerial photography throughout the state. As a transition space, Uplifted Ground utilizes the viewers’ motion north and south to experience the transformation of the piece over the 300 foot walkway space. Upon approaching the space one experiences the piece as a combined abstraction of hundreds of earth toned ground-based and suspended elements. Entering the space one first encounters a series of raised plinths articulated with complex relief patterns. Further into the space these plinths diminish in length while rising in height into cubic concrete elements with textured relief patterns, copper and steel details, and cut and incised shapes and scores. These cubic forms begin to uplift rising further still from the ground, with Llano Uplift granite merged into the surface of the elements. At a very specific but unseen threshold (due to a weight limitation of the existing walkway) the cubic forms begin to visually separate from their base and uplift into the air suspended by steel cables. This notion of uplifting has many meanings from the nearby Llano Uplift geological formation, to the uplift of aircraft and perhaps, the uplifting of one’s spirit.
Read More about this project here.
