Smout Allen

Lunar Wood

Ruthin Craft Centre, Centre for the Applied Arts

Japanese Style: Sustaining Design 1 April - 24 June 2012

The installation, which speculates on intriguing mythical beliefs and traditional attitudes that pervade our understanding of natural materials, was produced for a Nurturing the Spirit, a residency that brought together the Osamu Ishiyama Laboratory, Waseda University, Tokyo; Smout Allen and the Design Unit of the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff. It takes the form of a counter-balanced wooden landscape where equilibrium is disturbed and reset by bursts of air from below and the swinging movement of weights from above triggering the landscape to move in a rhythmic wave. The surface can be seen and heard to resonate with the fluctuating and reciprocal push and pull of natural cycles. 

Thanks to the Bartlett Workshop, Rhys Cannon, and to Michael Nixon, the show's curator.

Credits and Thanks