PHILIP BEESLEY RADIANT SOIL

ALIVE / EN VIE Exhibition, Espace EDF, Paris France
25/4-1/9

Canadian sculptor and architect Philip Beesley presents the commissioned work Radiant Soil as part of the ALIVE/EN VIE Group Exhibition at the Espace Fondation EDF, Paris. The show is curated by Carole Collet of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The exhibition opens with a preview on April 25, 2013 and runs until September 1.

Philip Beesley’s Radiant Soil serves as the entry portal into this cutting edge design exhibition exploring the revolutionary impact of living technology on the design and manufacture of our everyday world. Radiant Soil is part of an ongoing series of forest-like sculptures that are nearly alive. The structural cores of these works are delicate transparent acrylic and silicone meshworks that form vaulted canopies and groves of basket-like columns, constructed from of hundreds of thousands of intricate custom-made parts. Intelligent nervous systems send shivering, pulsing patterns of light through these immersive spaces. Gently shifting fronds make breathing motions that surround the viewer. Artificial metabolisms circulate through the systems, containing chemical ‘protocells’ that show the early stages of self-generating growth.
The work of Beesley and his collaborators is exploring a new generation of responsive spaces, raising fundamental questions about how architecture might behave in the future. Might future buildings begin to ‘know’ and ‘care’ about us? Might they start, in very primitive ways, to become alive?

Radiant Soil serves as a culmination to several French presentations in 2013. Currently touring in France is the next-generation large scale geotextile work Epiphyte Veil (Maubeuge, Créteil, Lille). In January, Beesley’s collaboration with avant-garde fashion designer Iris van Herpen presented a series of dresses featured during the Paris Fashion Week runway show of her acclaimed Voltage Haute Couture collection.
Recent exhibitions include The City Gallery (Wellington), Fundación Telefónica (Madrid), Luminato Festival (Toronto), the 2010 Venice Biennale for Architecture (selection as Canadian representative) and 2012 Sydney Biennale. In February 2013, the permanent work Aurora, commissioned by Simons Department Store, opened at the West Edmonton Mall.

Philip Beesley’s participation in ALIVE/EN VIE is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris and the University of Waterloo.
Fabric collaboration, Iris van Herpen and Philip Beesley © Irish Van Herpen Voltage Haute Couture Spring 2013
Detail of Aurora at Simons, West Edmonton Mall Viewer interacts with Radiant Soil at Espace EDF, Paris.
www.philipbeesley.com

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