Omorphiá
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Public Garden Sculpture
Pafos, Cyprus
2017
City of Pafos
Hilary Smith
Pafos, Cyprus
2017
City of Pafos
Hilary Smith
The town of Pafos issed an open-call competition for sculptural installations to help reactivate the town’s Municipal Garden and strengthen the relationship between the town, people, and nature
. Installations are limited to a 3x3x3m volume and should be designed with the expectation that it may be assembled and disassembled by ordinary Pafos citizens.
Pafos is laced with fascinating connections to Greek mythology that became the foundation of the design. It’s fabled that Aphrodite herself, the goddess of beauty (after which the project was named) was birthed offshore from Pafos. During her ascension from the water, a Greek Myrtle cutling clothed her from nudity. Aphrodite then became the first wife of Hephaestus, the god of metallurgy and sculptures. In a testament to these gods, the project urges visitors to reevaluate their relationship with the environment by distorting the line between built and natural structures. It engages the local aluminum industry of the town to efficiently and reliably manufacture several 3D voxels that can be easily stacked and sculpted into a porous shape that cantilevers out from a minimal footprint. This mushrooming form suspends itself in anticipation of embracing the growing myrtle shrubs planted at its base. Over time, the installation takes on an increasingly sublime state as the myrtle pierces through the negative space of the aluminum trellis.
Pafos is laced with fascinating connections to Greek mythology that became the foundation of the design. It’s fabled that Aphrodite herself, the goddess of beauty (after which the project was named) was birthed offshore from Pafos. During her ascension from the water, a Greek Myrtle cutling clothed her from nudity. Aphrodite then became the first wife of Hephaestus, the god of metallurgy and sculptures. In a testament to these gods, the project urges visitors to reevaluate their relationship with the environment by distorting the line between built and natural structures. It engages the local aluminum industry of the town to efficiently and reliably manufacture several 3D voxels that can be easily stacked and sculpted into a porous shape that cantilevers out from a minimal footprint. This mushrooming form suspends itself in anticipation of embracing the growing myrtle shrubs planted at its base. Over time, the installation takes on an increasingly sublime state as the myrtle pierces through the negative space of the aluminum trellis.