Echelman`s newest work, Earthtime 1.26 Hong Kong premiered in March, 2019 at The Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong and explores the interconnected networks of our cultural and physical world. “It's a perfect site for this unexpected intervention. I love jarring juxtapositions -- they wake us up. I imagined a sculpture dropping from the sky to Hong Kong`s iconic Peninsula Hotel,“ Echelman says. The number 1.26 within the title refers to time, as it measures how a day was shortened by that number of microseconds when a single physical event shifted the earth`s mass. We think of a day as a fixed quantity, but the speed of earth`s rotation is constantly shifting in response to physical phenomena. Echelman started the Earthtime series in 2010 when the Biennial of the Americas asked her to create a work about the interconnectedness of nations. Lightweight and flexible, the sculpture is designed to travel to cities around the world as a physical manifestation of interconnectedness. "I always push beyond the confines of the ‘high art` setting into the public realm to create art that is as accessible and free as the air we breathe.” Our surroundings affect how we feel and how we experience our lives - we are responsible for the way our cities look and function. Echelman`s netted works bring softness to the scale of the city. They are soft counterpoints to the hard edges of buildings, offering proof that we can interrogate the status quo - that the assumption that cities must be formed from hard materials and straight edges can be changed. “I feel a need to find moments of contemplation in the midst of daily city life,” Echelman said. “If my art can create an opportunity to contemplate the larger cycles of time and remind us to listen to our inner selves, I believe this can be the start of transformation.” The installation marks the launch of The Peninsula Hotel`s multi-year global campaign titled ‘Art in Resonance.` As an official partner of Art Basel, The Peninsula Hotel “promises to provide inspiring new experiences for visitors, while helping to shine a spotlight on the culturally-rich city of Hong Kong, The Peninsula`s home.” For opening night, The Peninsula constructed public viewing platforms with lounge chairs to invite everyone to recline and look up and notice the choreography of wind coming off Victoria Harbor affecting the sculpture`s soft surface. Echelman`s work, and The Peninsula Hotel`s art program overall, offer an oasis from the chaos of daily city life. Echelman feels that the installation “creates a moment of calm sensory experience which heightens our awareness of the subtle changes happening around us.” Courtesy of Studio Echelman.
