ICYMI: Occidental Park Art Installation

If you haven’t had occasion to meander through Pioneer Square’s Occidental Park lately, then you’ve likely missed its late-summer, early-fall treasure: a show-stopping art installation from local artist Sophia Wheelwright, up now through mid-October.

In an effort to bring more art to Occidental and Westlake parks, the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) is featuring Wheelwright’s “Suspended Eddies,” a 20-by-60-foot project suspended in the Northeast corner of Occidental.

The piece, made of aluminum mesh, changes likeness with day and night; in daylight hours it presents a cloud-like formation within the trees, and at night, LED lights give the installation a blue-green glow.

Of the piece, Wheelwright has said, “I believe what slows us down, even for a few moments, can remind us how extraordinary everyday objects are and shift our experience of place as we notice texture, patterns, light, movement and sound in a more focused way…In a river, an eddy provides an opportunity to rest behind a rock in quieter water and notice the details before rejoining the chaos of the current. With this piece, I hope to provide an ‘eddy’ for people in a bustling urban space.”