From June 18 – September 20, 2015, the Institute For Figuring’s Bleached Reef will be on display in the exhibition Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty, an examination of artistic responses to “the staggering immensity of nature,” at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

The IFF’s Bleached Reef is an installation of handicrafted corals evoking, through the collective work of women, the beauty of living reefs and the threats they face from global warming. Reef design by Margaret and Christine Wertheim. Crochet coral pieces by Christine and Margaret Wertheim (CA/Australia), Marianne Midelburg (Australia), Nancy Lewis (VT), Helle Jorgensen (Australia), Sarah Simons (CA), Evelyn Hardin (TX), Arlene Mintzer (NY), Jill Schrier, (NY), Pamela Stiles (NY), Dagma Frinta (NY), Christina Simons (CA). With vintage doilies by unknown makers, and miniature beaded-coral towers by Nadia Severns (NY). The installation has been expanded and newly curated for this show.

Artists featured in Night Begins the Day include Institute For Figuring, Werner Herzog, Michael Light, The Long Now Foundation, and Fred Tomaselli.

See more.

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Opening in June, the IFF’s Crochet Coral Reef will be on show alongside Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated Codex Leicester, the book that contains his famous drawings of water. The exhibition, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is a rare chance to see da Vinci’s original drawings and his related water-themed theories, including his ideas about the origin of the moon and the cause of tides. The wider exhibit surrounding the Leonardos is intended as an examination of the interface between art, science, mathematics and nature. As curator Alex Bortolot writes: “The exhibition is organized to explore ways in which ‘thinking on paper’, curiosity, and observation lead to innovation.” Picking up on the watery theme, the show also features Bill Viola’s video installation The Raft, and a special section devoted to the mathematics behind the Crochet Coral Reef project. [See MIA Press Release.] “Leonardo da Vinci, the Codex Leicester, and the Creative Mind” is on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, June 21–August 30.

Leonardo da Vinci, a page from Codex Leicester (1506–10).

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Today the IFF received a letter from the Colorado Department of Youth Corrections’ Betty K Mahler Center, a juvenile detention center that houses teenage girls. In 2014 a group of incarcerated girls made a Crochet Coral Reef as part of a program in which they practice “restorative justice” through handicraft. We have included the names of these 30 young women in our Crochet Coral Reef book, and the letter they have sent in return has touched us deeply. We quote here from one young inmate, Faith E: “I really appreciate how you guys really thought of us and put us in your amazing book. Thank you for noticing the unnoticed!!” We applaud the efforts, and the courage, of Faith and her fellow crocheters at the Betty K Mahler Center and its Rites of Passage program. These are girls whom society has overlooked and underlooked, young women, barely out of childhood, called upon to overcome cycles of disregard and violence. We are honored to include them in our worldwide family of Crochet Coral Reefers. A list of the names of these girls can be seen here.

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The IFF’s long-awaited book on our Crochet Coral Reef project is finished and on its way from the printer. Edited by Reef creators Margaret and Christine Wertheim and documenting one of the largest community art+science projects in the world – with 8000 active participants around the globe – the book includes chapters on the mathematics and environmental science behind the project, detailing its foundations in non-Euclidean geometry and as a collective artistic response to global warming. Essays are also devoted to the project in relationship to the history of women’s work, the ethics of social practice art and the theory of evolution, along with an outrageously funny Forward by science studies scholar Donna Haraway. Illustrated with 100 pages of gorgeous color photos, this comprehensive volume serves as a testimony to the collective genius of the thousands of people from New York and London to Latvia and Croatia who have participated in building an enchanted archipelago of more than 30 crochet reefs in a dozen countries over the past 9 years. All 7000+ participants are listed in a specially designed section. The books will be arriving at the IFF in early February and we’ll be sending out copies then to all those who contributed to our Kickstarter campaign. To pre-order a copy of this lavish, limited edition print-run see here.

Essays by Margaret Wertheim, Christine Wertheim, Anna Mayer, Leslie Dick, Marion Endt-Jones and Forward by Donna Haraway.

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The latest exhibition of our Crochet Coral Reef project is open at the New York University Abu Dhabi Institute in the United Arab Emirates. Centering around a new Coral Forest installation comprised of six large-scale ‘snakey-armed’ sculptures crocheted from yarn and plastic thread (including an all-white shopping-bag-and-Saran-wrap extravaganza plus its all-black video-tape sibling), the exhibition is a meditation on the evolution of oceanic forms and a reflection on the tsunami of plastic trash threatening marine life. At the opposite end of the scale, the show includes a collection of miniature coral Pod Worlds, each a tiny faux universe curated from pieces by some of our most skilled crafters. On show also is the NYU Abu Dhabi Satellite Reef, the newest addition to the ever-growing archipelago of crochet reefs worldwide. Looking stunning in this volcanically inspired space, the exhibition runs through December 5th 2014.

Crochet Coral Forest, at the New York University Abu Dhabi Institute, UAE. October 2014. The white and pink sculptures at left are crocheted entirely from plastic. In the foreground is a “Pod World” vitrine featuring plastic crochet corals by Christine Wertheim and Kathleen Greco, resting on a bed of plastic “sand” gathered from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. [The tall orange piece, Coral Forest – Stheno, is from the collection of Jorian Polis Schutz.]

When we think of coral reefs, we tend to imagine the tropics. But the Middle East is also home to spectacular reef systems – and soon the region will have its first crochet coral reef.  For the past two years, the IFF has been working with the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute to collaborate on a local, citizen-generated Satellite Reef. This unique addition to the worldwide archipelago of crochet reefs is being constructed around a collection of traditional Emirati fishing baskets, attached together in mosque-like mounds. This new reef will be part of a major Crochet Coral Reef exhibition at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute beginning September 28. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the IFF’s giant new Coral Forest sculptures, which will be shown together for the first time.

Traditional Emirati fishing baskets form the understructure for the “NYU Abu Dhabi Institute Satellite Reef,” seen here in elegant mosque-like mounds. Photo by NYUADI Satellite Reef co-ordinator Michal Teague.

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“Making Space” exhibition at Google, Venice CA. Photos © IFF Archive.

On February 10, 2014, the IFF and friends made a field trip to Google’s office in Venice, CA, to visit our exhibition there. Titled “Making Space” the exhibit showcased works developed at the IFF during our Making Space mathematics and aesthetics project in 2013. Included in the Google show – which finished its run in late February 2014 – were large-scale sculptures of business card origami, plus tiny beaded Platonic solids, geometric bamboo stick-things, and other enigmatic spatial structures. The pieces looked terrific in the Google space and we thank program manager Max Maxwell for spearheading Google Venice’s innovative arts program. Works featured in the exhibition were by Jake Dotson, Jesse Dotson, Christina Simons, David Orozco, Kathryn Harris, Corrine Cascioppo and Margaret Wertheim. The business card origami sculptures on display built on and extended original research by engineer Dr. Jeannine Mosely, a pioneer of mathematical paper-folding or origami sekkei. See here for more photos of this elegant installation.

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Eight years, five continents, and over 7000 contributors in the making, the IFF’s Crochet Coral Reef project is ready for a book. Now at last we’ll have the science, math and environmental concepts inherent in the project available in one place, plus lots of  beautiful photos of the many exhibitions.FLASH NEWS: The book will celebrate ALL the people who have been involved in this collective aesthetic experiment. All 7000+ contributors to all the Crochet Reefs worldwide will be named in a beautifully designed section that will be an artwork in itself

In order to fund production, we are pre-selling copies via Kickstarter. Your contribution of $45 or more assures you a signed, numbered, first edition. If you love handicraft, care about the environment, or are passionate about the intersection of art and science, THIS IS A BOOK FOR YOU. A paradigmatic example of STEM to STEAM in action! Support our Kickstarter and ensure your copy now:

Crochet Coral Reef: Kickstarter

The images above resemble marine diatoms, yet they are crochet doilie patterns culled from old pattern books by Reef contributor Sarah Simons. A spread of these beauties will be featured in the book.

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