Birth of an Installation
By Patrick Sullivan
WHAT’S 26 FEET WIDE, 30 feet long, and 15 feet high? Here’s another clue: it incorporates 200 prom dresses, a bunch of yoga balls, and several walk-in fiberglass vaginas. If you guessed The Cradle, the Burning Man installation project created by Sonoma State University art professor Jann Nunn and collaborator Deirdre de Franceaux, you’re half right. That’s what the piece will look like–when it’s done, which is theoretically going to be Thursday, Aug. 16. But like any newborn, this one may or may not arrive on schedule.
“Oh my god, we certainly hope so,” says Nunn, who is doing the steelwork on the piece. “It’s a huge, huge project.”
The Cradle was commissioned by Burning Man, the annual Nevada festival of radical self-expression, as the entry piece to the festival’s “Seven Ages of Man” installation series. If you’re not planning to hit the Black Rock Desert, you’ve got one chance to walk through The Cradle’ s version of the wonder of birth. After completion, the piece will be on exhibit Thursday afternoon and evening only in the courtyard of the SSU sculpture department.
From the August 16-22, 2001 issue of the Northern California Bohemian.
