As If It Were Already Here

In the middle of Boston, the tall, dark and mirrored skyscrapers are interrupted by what could easily be a trick of the light. As If Were Already Here, an installation created by Studio Echelman, is a 2,000 pound sculpture that literally 'knits' the city together in a mass of coloured ropes that are suspended in the sky like a dropped handkerchief. What is most surprising about the installation is how seamlessly the multicoloured behemoth blends into its surroundings. At first it seems as out of place as anything could be, but with a second glance, the observer notices that it is drawn into the cityscape, and yet it has not been subsumed. The sculpture creates that paradox of what is unnatural visually becoming natural. The sculpture is made up 100 miles of rope knitted together in a haze of different colours, each strand knotted together in different ways. When the eye first catches sight of it, it could almost be a trick of the light, and yet it is no mean feat of engineering, constructed to withstand changes in weather and wind direction. The installation floats across the Rose Kennedy Greenway, in the centre of Boston, and despite being surrounded by skyscrapers and their glaringly modern architecture, As If It Were Already Here softens the view, next to them looking closer to nature than the man made world. The best thing about the installation, its creator Janet Echelman argues, is that the piece catches the eye in a way that is unavoidably striking: therefore allowing the commuter or museum-hungry tourist to stop and contemplate it. The Greenway it hangs above provides a green respite in the middle of the city, and the sculpture echoes that as civilians take time out from their busy day to marvel at the near-impossibilities the project is made up of.   www.echelman.com