Studio Orta

Following their participation in Glasstress 2013, Lucy + Jorge Orta are delighted to announce their participation in Glasstress 2015 Gotika, a collateral exhibition that will take place at the Palazzo Franchetti, Academia for the 56th Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

The exhibition, lead by the State Hermitage Museum and Berengo Studio, explores how medieval ideas and communication methods have imperceptibly crept into our modern conscience despite our technological advances and how the Gothic concept influences contemporary art. Glasstress 2015 Gotika will combine historical works from the Hermitage collection and newly commissioned art works in glass, all with a Gothic theme.

Commissioned for the exhibition, Lucy + Jorge Orta’s sculpture Arboreal, is an imposing bronze cast from a fallen tree-trunk from which, four exquisite glass seed pods are blossoming. The contrast between the dark patina of the bronze and the ethereal quality of the delicate hand-blown Murano glass, speak of the resilience of nature to overcome the most barren environments.

On May 2nd, ZegnArt celebrated the opening of Expo Milan 2015. For the occasion, Lucy + Jorge Orta were commissioned to create a series of monumental wall murals for the Ermenegildo Zegna global headquarters, forming a stunning backdrop to the performance Symphony of Absent Wildlife and Act XXXVII of their artist dinners, 70 x 7 The Meal. The exhibition Fabulae Naturae curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, will be open to the public on May 10th, 24th and 31st.

The artists transformed the remarkable architecture designed by Antonio Citterio into a forest of immense floral murals reminiscent of the Oasi Zegna. The larger-than-life murals were inspired by the artists’ research undertaken in the Heberlein Fund, a vast printed textile collection conserved by the Zegna Archive. At the centerpiece of the setting is a life-size tree floor drawing, whose branches lead visitors to thefood stations, where the famous chef Davide Oldani served a menu of sustainable delicacies. Choosing timely convivial moments to discuss sustainable issues, Lucy + Jorge Orta have created a limited edition of Royal Limoges porcelain, to provoke debates between guests, and to support the restoration of the Punta Mesco area in Italy. For each artwork sold a row of vines will be planted, bearing the name of each «owner».

For Fabulae Naturae, Lucy + Jorge Orta create a true ode to wildlife. Along side the immense kaleidoscope of murals, the artists staged Symphony for Absent Wildlife, a visual and audio installation, to intensify the feeling of stepping into a fairy tale world, inhabited by fictional creatures of the forest. The three-dimensional sound-scape is conceived as a dichotomy between a ‘false’ orchestra of flutists acting in a symphony for nature and a ‘true’ orchestra consisting of bird whistles. Each musician wears a tailcoat and mask, in the form of a woodland creature tailored from reclaimed felt blankets.

Fabulae Naturae is a new episode of the art and food performances that Lucy + Jorge Orta have presented in cities around the world since 1997, in which they connect art, nutrition and ethical themes. Watch the video clip.

After the resounding success of the exhibition Food Water Life at the Parc de la Villette in Paris during summer 2014, the Richard E.Peeler Art Center at DePauw University inaugurates Lucy + Jorge Orta’s US touring exhibition Food Water Life on February 5th 2015. The exhibition presents three bodies of work that span close to two decades of collaborative work. Through sculptures, drawings, installations, and video the artists explore major concerns that define the twenty-first century: biodiversity, environmental sustainability, climate change, and social economy.

As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by the German artist and activist Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Ortas’ works are relics of their own function—captivating assemblages such as the Processing Units and the Purification Factory are, respectively, a platform for the preparation of food and a mechanism to purify water. Other sculpture created for a 2007 expedition to Antarctica, form part of a global effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The featured works are metaphors-in-action, imaginative constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.

Food Water Life was initiated by the Tufts University Art Gallery in September 2012, and is curated by curatorsquared.
The final leg of the tour will conclude at London Museum in Ontario, Canada from August 29 – December 6, 2015.

Following the exhibition Lens on life which took place in July 2014 at Federica Schiavo Gallery in Rome, Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Cells Diptych is displayed at Lethaby Gallery Central Saint Martins in London from January 20 to February 27, 2015. Marina Wallace, Professor at the University of the Arts London and curator of this exhibition, initiated a series of conversations between artists and scientists. Lens On Life is a project strongly rooted within the field of art and science. Each collaboration intends to portray through contemporary art, a unique interpretation of mitosis, one of the fundamental mechanisms of human life.

Since 2013 Lucy + Jorge Orta have been in discussion with Professor Tony Hyman, eminent mitosis scientist at the Max Plank institute of research in Dresden. Cells Diptych is the result of their encounter with the genetic transformation of the immensely complex structures within human cells. Through dreamy watercolour drawings and colourful, intricate Murano glass sculptures, the artists poetically explore cellular communication, transformation and division.

An important part of the exhibition is the documentary video Meetings of Minds, recording the fascinating process of the collaboration between the artists and scientists.

The exhibition will conclude its European tour at Heidelberg University Museum, from 16th March to 28th April 2015.

The Ben Maltz Gallery in Los Angeles presents Food Water Life Lucy + Jorge Orta's first major exhibition on the West Coast (August 16–December 6, 2014). The artists will be in the Los Angeles gallery to sign their book, which accompanies the exhibition, on Saturday October 25, 3-6pm.

The exhibition presents three bodies of work that span close to two decades of their collaborative work. Through sculptures, drawings, video and installations the artists explore major concerns that define the twenty-first century: biodiversity, environmental sustainability and climate change.

As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by the German artist and activist Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Orta’s works are relics of their own function—captivating assemblages such as the Mexican Kitchen, and the Fluvial Intervention Units are respectively, a platform for the preparation of food and mechanisms to purify water. Other sculptures, including the diptych video projection Antarctica were created for a 2007 expedition to the Antarctic that forms part of an effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The featured works are metaphors-in-action, constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.

This exhibition, curated by curatorsquared and organized by Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA, tours to the Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, USA (February 5–May 7, 2015) and the London Museum, Ontario, Canada (August 29–December 6, 2015)

Key dates to meet the artists and the curators.

Tuesday October 21, 11:15am Public lecture Otis College of Art & Design, 9045 Lincoln Boulevard, LA 90045
Thursday October 23, 10am Public lecture Otis Graduate Studios, 10455 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City 90230. Map

In conversation with curators Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox, followed by a book signing and reception
Saturday October 25, 3-6pm Ben Malz Gallery, 10455 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City 90230. Map

What will Fashion look like in the Future? Taking a critical view of the current fashion system and showing more than fifty innovative artworks at the cutting edge of art and fashion, the exhibition The Future of Fashion is Now proposes a unique vision of the future.

For this visionary exhibition held at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam from October 11 until January 11 2015, Lucy + Jorge Orta exhibit two flagship artworks that question codes of dress, and provide original interpretations of the cultural and sociological role of clothing.

As an emblem of Orta’s practice Nexus Type Opera.tion – from the Nexus Architecture body of work – emphasizes the notions of the social link or community bond. The work consists of groups of workers-overalls, inter-connected via a system of channels and zippers. The connecting elements of the installation are direct embodiments of the idea of social link a social sculpture, exhibited both within the museum setting or performed within the public sphere.

The short film Wandering, realized during a three-year long study of Roma gypsy communities across Europe, focuses on a dancer’s immense circular skirt that is aroused by the movements of traditional eastern-European gypsy melodies. Through the dynamic and poetical rhythms that blur the bellowing patterned motifs of the silk, Wandering evokes a shared aesthetic without barriers of time and space, deeply rooted in Roma communities.

Opening on October 11 from 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm

For Calgary Nuit Blanche 2014, Lucy + Jorge Orta have been invited to create a majestic outdoor installation and performance in the Olympic Plaza. The artists have imagined a living monument for the late-night Canadian public art festival. Under the title Symphony for Absent Wildlife [Spirits of Alberta] the artists have created a true ode to wildlife, taking the form of a visual and audio installation, and which culminates in a major film in 2015.

In Symphony for Absent Wildlife, the stretcher-bed - an occurring metaphoric object in Orta’s practice - marks a pathway to woodland clearing, composed of weathered tree trunks sourced from local forests, an essential zone for the maintenance of forestry biodiversity. The path is raised above the ground by the means of simple wooden trestles, the kind constructed for chopping wood. In the clearing, we encounter a masked orchestra of Spirits.
Each musician dons a mask, in the form of a creature, and an iconic tailcoat tailored from reclaimed felt blankets, which bears the inscriptions of past warriors and homeless wanderers. These foreboding masked figures represent the spirits of the once abundant wildlife across the Albertan plains: bison, moose, wapiti, wolves, grizzly bears, and eagles.

On the evening of September 20 2014, the music stands illuminate a graphic score, the conductor guides the masked-animal musicians, and the performance commences. An amplified symphony of avian chatter - birdsong - resonates across the city. Man or beast?  Just simple hand crafted bird whistles that replicate the remarkable sounds of nature.

Symphony for Absent Wildlife brings a fragment of the disappearing natural environment, its sounds and the diversity of its fauna, closer to the city.

Nuit Blanche live performances from 7pm to 1am Map 
The Banff Centre, February 2015

Le Havre Ville Monde proposes an excursion across the city of Le Havre through the prisim of major public installation, and two exhbitions by Lucy + Jorge Orta. The Antarctica Flag marks an eyecatching avenue to the contemporary art centres of Tetris and Portique. This visual and symbolic presentation has been commissioned by the Positive Economy Forum 2014, which brings together leaders in the field of social and positive economy.

A monumental one-hundred Antarctica Flags adorn the facade of the City Hall, the Ocean Docks, the peak of Oscar Niemeyer's famous ‘Volcano’ and culminate at the Antarctica World Passport Bureau installed at the entrance of Portique, where vistors are issued with their Antarctica World Passport.

Also at Portique is an exclusive showing of works under the heading Rosario 1973-1984. This body of work, from the archives of Studio Orta includes, Tactile Poems, a Gama Mural, and a performance Chainsaw Concert, created by Jorge Orta in Argentina, during the dictatorial period. A rare opportunity to see work on display for the first time.

At Tetris, on view are the Spirits of Huveaune, minature sculptures and photographies surrounding the creation of five sculptures now installed permanently along the Huveaune valley, Marseille. The exhibition serves as a long-term platform to initiate the project Les Enfants du Havre, to be developed through collaborative workshops with local residents. 

Finally, for the 300 delegates gathered at the Positive Economy Forum, Lucy + Jorge Orta give a new instance to their ongoing work 70 x 7 The Meal. A dinner conceived as an installation, includes a Royal Limoges dinner service created for the occasion in collaboration with one of the last porcelain manufacturers in Europe.

Contact press : Victoire Birembaux

Important dates

• Le Portique: Private view 12 Sept., 6.30pm. Performance Concert de Tronçonneuses 7.00pm. Exhibition 12 Sept. to 08 Nov. 2014
• Le Tétris: Private view 13 Sept., 6.30pm. Exhibition 13 Sept. to 04 Oct. 2014
• Le Havre: Private view 23 Sept., 6.30pm at Pasino Le Havre-Partouche
• LHFORUM / Positive Economy Forum 2014: From 23 to 26 Sept. 2014

We are pleased to announce the exhibition of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s new glass sculptures Cells, at the Federica Schiavo Gallery in Rome, created as a result of an ongoing dialogue with emminent mitosis scientist Tony Hyman.

Tony Hyman works on the molecular mechanism of conserved cytoskeletal processes in the Hyman Lab at the Max Plank Institute of Mollecular biology, he is also part of MitoSys (systems biology of mitosis), a FP7 European scientific research project. Hyman has been in dialogue with Lucy + Jorge Orta since 2013, discussing the transformations of the immensely complex structures of human cells. Reflecting on cellular communication growth, and working together with the glass masters at Berengo Studio in Murano, the artists represent the different stages of mitosis and meiosis. When the process of chromosome division goes wrong, it reeks havoc and leads to incredible, wild and complex three-dimensional structures.

Lucy + Jorge Ortas’ Cells Diptych will be display in Lens on Life, a fascinating exhibition curated by Professor Marina Wallace, which maps a number of dialogues between artists and scientists who portray, each in their own unique way, the fundamental mechanisms of human life – mitosis. The exhibition in Rome is the first of a series of three. Lens On Life will travel to the Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins in London (29 January to 29 February 2015), and Heidelberg University Museum (16 March to 28 April 2015).

An important part of the exhibition is the documentary Meetings of Minds, witnessing the various stages of the collaboration between the artists and scientists.

A symposium will be held at the MAXXI Museo delle Arti del XXI Secolo on the 10 July, followed by the screening of Meetings of Minds.

Hot off the press! Actes Sud has published Lucy + Jorge Orta: Food / Water / Life, a new monograph exploring some of the most salient themes in the artists’ work. The publication features contributions from several of France’s foremost thinkers on art and the environment: Catherine Larrère, Paul Ardenne, and Christophe Rioux. It also includes an in-depth interview with the artists and images of their recent work, commissioned for the exhibition at Parc de la Villette.

Food / Water / Life accompanies Lucy + Jorge Orta’s eponymous solo exhibition on view from May 21 – September 21, 2014. The show highlights seminal archival works and newly commissioned sculptures, poetic explorations that interrogate our daily habits of eating, drinking, and living. Visitors are invited to stroll the park’s expansive grounds to discover the artists’ diverse artworks, including a new series of Spirits inspired from children who frequent La Villette; an OrtaWater Purification Station purifying water from the Canal de l'Ourcq; and an Antarctica World Passport Bureau, where passers-by can receive a new edition of the Antarctica World Passport and become members of the growing Antarctica World Community. 

Food / Water / Life is available online and in bookstores around the world.

Parc de la Villette in Paris inaugurates Lucy + Jorge Orta’s solo exhibition Food Water Life, an inspiring mixture of seminal archival works and newly commissioned sculptures spanning the Paul-Delouvrier contemporary art pavilion and park grounds.

This exhibition builds on Lucy + Jorge Orta’s examination of contemporary issues through poetic explorations that interrogate our daily habits of eating, drinking, and living. Visitors will be invited to stroll the park’s expansive grounds to discover the artists’ diverse artworks, including a new series of Spirits inspired by children who frequent La Villette; an OrtaWater Purification Station that will pump water from the Canal de l'Ourcq, through the park, and into the gallery to be purified; and an Antarctica World Passport Bureau, where passers-by can sign up to receive a new edition of the Antarctica World Passport and become members of the growing Antarctica World Community. 

FOOD WATER LIFE takes us on a journey toward imagining, sharing, and ultimately rendering possible a more just society.

Vernissage May 20, 2014 at 18h30
In the presence of the artists
RSVP: vernissage@villette.com

Metro/bus/tram: Porte de Pantin Map

On January 25, the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University inaugurates the next chapter of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s exhibition Food Water Life. The show presents three projects that span close to two decades of collaborative work. Through sculpture, drawing, installation, and video the artists explore concerns that define the twenty-first century: biodiversity, environmental sustainability, climate change, and social economy.

As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by the German artist and activist Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Orta’s works are relics of their own function—captivating assemblages such as the Processing Units and the Purification Factory are, respectively, a platform for the preparation of food and a mechanism to purify water. Other elements, created for a 2007 expedition to Antarctica, form part of an effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The featured works are metaphors-in-action, constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.

This exhibition, which is curated by curatorsquared, originated at Tufts University Gallery and tours to the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (August 16 – December 7 2014) and the Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle (February 5 – May 7, 2015). 

Aux Commandes ! is an exhibition featuring eight recent commissions by the Fondation de France initiative Nouveaux Commanditaires (New Patrons). In the last twenty years New Patrons has enabled the production of more than 400 works across Europe. The emblematic artworks selected for this exhibition at Châteu de Tours reveal the ways in which citizens and artists can engage in territorial development to define their living and work spaces. The exhibition captures the diversity of political issues to which our society responds, the range of artwork commissions seeking to address them, and the pertinence of these artistic proposals to effect change.

Lucy + Jorge Orta present a miniature version of Spirits of the Huveaune, a scale replica of the five permanent figurative sculptures that were installed over a two-year period along the Huveaune valley and inaugurated for Marseille Cultural Capital 2013. Known locally as the Chemin des Fées, the five Spirit sculptures map the presence of the Huveaune, a coastal river in eastern Provence that originates in the massif of Sainte Baume and flows into the Mediterranean Sea at Marseille.

The five Spirits of the Huveaune: Spirit of the source – Marie, Martellières, Saint-Zacharie Spirit of the bridge – Ubelka, Moulin Saint-Claude, Auriol Spirit of the river banks – Manon, Îlot des Berges Park, Aubagne Spirit of the old mill – Gyptis, Parc du vieux Moulin Spirit of the lake – Ophelia, Parc Borély

Spirits of the Huveaune was commissioned by the association Rives & Cultures and mediated by the Bureau des Compétences et Désirs, Sylvie Amar and Anastassia Makridou-Bretonneau.

On October 17 Arts University Bournemouth launches the new book Lucy + Jorge Orta: Potential Architecture. This monograph delves into Lucy + Jorge Orta’s recent architectural endeavors that derive from their fascination with cell biology and the process of cell differentiation. It traces the fruit of the artists’ research on new organic and modular architecture as a result of their collaboration with the Greenham partnership and other communities across Europe. Through drawings and sculpture, the artists conceptualize the communication process the human cell undertakes from its embryonic state and the infinite transformations that lead to defined structural organisms.

The release of this new publication coincides with the exhibition Lucy + Jorge Orta: Potential Architecture curated by Simon Beeson at TheGallery, Arts University Bournemouth. The exhibition brings together sculptures, drawings, and models created by the artist since the inception of Totipotent Architecture in 2002. This series marked a shift away from the body and transient shelters to more permanent proposals for sculpture and interventions in urban space.

Simon Beeson in conversation with Lucy Orta: 5pm-6pm, followed by drinks reception: 6pm-7pm, TheGallery. Exhibition on view until December 1, 2013

To mark its 30^th anniversary Mural Arts Philadelphia has invited Lucy + Jorge Orta to create the seminal project What We Sow, which expands on the social and civic foundation of the mural tradition by addressing the relationship among local communities, regional ecologies, global economies, and the politics of food production.

On October 5, 2013, to conclude an engaging schedule of community programs, Orta will stage 70 x 7 The Meal, act XXXIV, gathering thousands of people around a meal for dinner. The table, set with a newly commissioned edition of Royal Limoges porcelain plates and a table runner adorned with original drawings by the artists, will span Independence National Historical Park. Among its many historical treasures this park is home to Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution was debated and adopted in the late 18th century.

70 x 7 The Meal, act XXXIV will gather over a thousand guests around a communal table as well as simultaneous dinners across the city to engage diverse communities in conversation surrounding the issue of heirloom foods and their role in creating access to a healthier food system. The meal will feature a menu of heirloom produce created by Philadelphia’s star Chef Marc Vetri. Invitations to the 70 x 7 The Meal were awarded by lottery, offering equal chance for those from the Philadelphia community to not only take a seat at the table, but to find a voice in the discussion.

The first ever Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art features two pivotal works by Lucy + Jorge Orta: a new, specially commissioned iteration of Nexus Architecture and the very first exposition of Connector Mobile Village in its entirety. 

Nexus Architecture is regarded as an emblem of Orta’s practice. This body of work, which is both an installation and performative, is comprised of groups of workers-overalls, interconnected via a system of channels and zippers called the ‘Nexus’, meaning link or bond. A Nexus Architecture intervention, with the participation of fifty performers, was staged on site in Hangzhou and filmed for a forthcoming new video. For the duration of the Triennial, an installation of the specially commissioned Nexus overalls will be on display at the Zhejiang Art Museum.

For the very first time Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Connector Mobile Village will be on view in its entirety, filling the striking entrance of the Zhejiang Art Museum. This monumental installation is the culmination of many years of work creating a vast system of modular architectures that adapt according to the needs of an individual or group. Each unit can be interconnected to form manifold complex structures capable of serving larger numbers of people and performing different residential, educational and social functions. The nature of these structures allows each individual to exert the freedom of choice by connecting to or disconnecting from the sequence at will.

On July 20, 2013 a presentation of new and recent work by Lucy + Jorge Orta opens at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Located in YSP’s Longside Gallery and on the park grounds, this important exhibition revolves around the theme of water, central to Orta’s practice. Alongside archival works the artists launch two major new commissions: Raft of the Medusa and Spirits of the Huveaune - Ubelka.

Raft of the Medusa, a centerpiece of the exhibition, is inspired by Théodore Géricault’s 1818-19 shipwreck painting Le Radeau de la Méduse. Constructed in the form of a radeau de fortune, this unusual patchwork assemblage of driftwood, lacquered glass, oil drums, giant oars and a ‘cloud’ roof resembles a large raft out of which juts an imposing ladder-cum-mast. The sculpture is laden with allusions to water’s contradictory power to save or destroy and to current international migration and the journeys many are forced to take in search of refuge.

Also unveiled is Ubelka, a larger than life female figure cast in bronze belonging to Orta’s ongoing Spirits series. Weaving a link between past and present, Spirits refers to the universal water cycle and its poetic representation through myth and legend surrounding the history of Marseille’s Huveaune river, along which five earlier works now permanently reside. Ubelka is the mother goddess of water, the maternal figure from whom the river takes its original name. Ubelka at YSP is generously enabled by Pangolin Editions.

Orta have designed two limited edition plates exclusively for YSP to coincide with the exhibition. Both designs draw from Orta’s series 70x7 The Meal bringing people together ad infinitum around the ritual of eating. Made in Royal Limoges porcelain with a four-color enamel process, including platinum silver accents, the plates feature the artists’ drawings and are signed and numbered on the reverse. Both are in an edition of 50 and available for the special exhibition price of £160, with presentation box. Please see here for further details.

Glasstress. White Light / White Heat, curated by Adriano Berengo and James Putnam, invites artists to deal with light and heat, intrinsic aspects of glass and its working. Glass is born from the creative and destructive force of fire, which transforms the basic chemical elements into a viscous fluid. The result is a malleable matter with a chaotic, molecular structure providing light with a limitless variety of surfaces, colours, transparencies and reflections.

Specially commissioned for this exhibition, Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Amazonia Tree of Life is a magnificent bronze tree trunk, felled and polished over the years by river currents. Delicate blossoms of handcrafted glass flowers grafted onto carefully selected olive branches from the Mediterranean extend outward from the trunk. 

Amazonia Tree of Life follows the trajectory of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s ongoing Perpetual Amazonia project. During their expedition to the Peruvian Amazon in 2009 the artists photographed hundreds of rainforest plant species, a personalised collection of florilegium they continue to add to during their travels across the world. These florae have since been transformed into large format photographs, drawings, handcrafted couture works and porcelain objects. The latest interpretations in glass have been blown by the master craftsmen Danilo Zanella at the Berengo Studio in Venice, a truly unique addition to this ambitious project.

Glasstress is a collateral event of the 55th International Art Exhibition in Venice.

A suspended meeting place, the sky is the agora of our imagination.

On April 18, 2013 Lucy + Jorge Orta unveil their monumental work Cloud | Metéoros at St Pancras International. As part of a new initiative titled Terrace Wires, the artists have been selected to create the very first public sculpture to be suspended in the Barlow Shed of the Eurostar terminal.

The artwork will be a cardinal welcome to the nearly one million visitors to the station each week. Floating amid the glass-vaulted architecture of the historic Barlow Shed, Cloud | Metéoros resembles vast cumuli populated with travellers, a ‘magic carpet’ taking passengers on an imaginary journey in the skies. It also carries a more political message. The cloud calls into question how mankind will share the vital resource of water on earth.
Meteoros is derived from ancient Greek, meaning raised from the ground, suspended, lofty or in the midst. Clouds have long been intercessors between reality and the imagination, between heaven and earth, lightness and gravity. They inhabit the skies of Renaissance fresco paintings, often depicted crowded with laymen and prophets, angels and deities. Throughout history, this celestial vault has been a site of conviviality, of learning and exchange.

Terrace Wires is an initiative by HS1 Limited. This ambitious project finds its home in London alongside other annual public art commissions, including the Fourth Plinth, Turbine Hall at Tate Modern and the summer pavilion at Serpentine Gallery.

In honor of Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture and Fondation de France’s Nouveaux commanditaire, Lucy + Jorge Orta present Le Chemin des Fées – Spirits of the Huveaune, a 30km parcours of sculptures across four municipalities that invite people to rediscover the Huveaune river’s rich cultural heritage.

The five Spirits of the Huveaune, feminine figures cast into bronze, are situated along the Huveaune river valley between the spring, deep in the Provence Alps, and the estuary at the Mediterranean, the ancient sea port of Massilia. The legendry, supernatural and the imaginary are the artists’ sources of inspiration collated from historical texts, local legends and stories recounting the feminine presence associated with the Huveaune river and the valley.

April 6, 2013 marks the inauguration of three such spirits: la Fée de la source - Marie at the Martellière, Saint-Zacharia; la Fée du pont - Ubelka at the Moulin Saint-Claude, Auriol; and la Fée des berges - Manon at the Îlot des Berges Park, Aubagne.

A fourth spirit, La Fée du vieux moulin (Gyptis), was unveiled in October 2012 in the Vieux Moulin Park, and the fifth and final spirit, la Fée du lac - Ophélie, will be inaugurated in Borély Park this coming May.

The spirits invest each site as genii loci, weaving a link between the past and present. Referring to the universal water cycle, Le Chemin des Fées aims to raise public awareness of environmental issues related to the river’s fate, particularly water management in the future, there as elsewhere.

Chemin des Fées was commissioned by the Association Rives et Cultures.