Botanical Bacchanal: A Garden of Mirthly Delights
Few things are as dear to us at Haus Anima as The Fremont Art council. They bring an incredible amount of free weird and wonderful community art to Seattle and we love being a part of it.
We were honored to be invited to design an installation for the FAC’s 2024 Gala. The theme was “Botanical Bacchanal” with the concept of a larger-than-life garden. The room we chose to design was pure white and twenty feet square: an entirely blank canvas. The possibilities were endless.
Kalesta had been looking for an opportunity to incorporate colored shadows, where a red, a green, and a blue light combine to cast shadows in seven different shades. It is a magical effect that is well suited for an installation in such a blank room. We knew we needed flowers to incorporate the larger-than-life garden theme and decided that dahlias, with all their points, were the perfect candidates.
Ribbit took the helm as team lead, attending planning meetings and putting together a tiny scale proof of concept early in the process. Zighalka and Ribbit sorted out the technical side finding the right lights to use.
With the concept in place, we moved onto construction of the dahlias. Each flower used 60 to 100 sheets of tagboard cut into squares and rolled into a cones. We used hot glue and teamwork to attach each petal to recycled cardboard bases. The completed flowers slid onto PVC stems, held in place with paper towel tubes and secured with a tripod or concrete base at the bottom.
The dahlias ranged from three to five feet across and took an incredible amount of space to make and store. We did much of this construction at the Powerhouse (FAC’s workspace/studio in Fremont). Having a space to assemble these larger-than-life dahlias was absolutely critical to this project’s success. It was delightful to watch the Powerhouse fill with giant paper flowers and sculpted bugs as the other Gala artists worked on their installations alongside us.
We also created eight sections of grass and two mushrooms, cut from cardboard and whitened with a facade of paint and paper.
As the deadline neared we realized we had time to complete one of our stretch goals for the project - shadow puppet bugs the participants could play with to cast shadows in the room. Zighalka laser cut several bug forms and we added cellophane to give them an extra glittery effect.
With the addition of interactivity we decided that it would be helpful to have a docent for the instillation who could encourage the gala attendees to play. Skipper stepped seamlessly into the role, creating a high fashion costume complete with a dahlia headdress crafted from one of our early prototypes and a dramatic petal-inspired makeup look.
Lilac created a soundtrack to accentuate the space and fill the room with tranquil garden and nature sounds.
The day of the Gala was finally here. We traveled to the venue in South Seattle to set up. In two hours (our quickest set up yet!) we thoroughly transformed the room into a larger-than-life garden.
In addition to our room, we created several other art pieces for costumes and for other artist’s rooms.
The Gala was a success. We’re proud to support the FAC and participate in community art.
We look forward to seeing everyone at our house warming party!
Two photos courtesy of Beth Sohlberg - F.A.C photographer.
