creative technologist
Art work /
Slant
A site-specific installation in The Social Room at Skylyne at Temescal, Oakland.
Scope
Concept, design, fabrication, install.
Context
BXP commissioned a piece for The Social Room, the community lounge at Skylyne at Temescal in Oakland. Chaz and I made Slant as The Jack and Jane, our art partnership. This was our first permanent installation and the largest thing we had made: over three miles of sewing thread, passed between our hands.
Challenge
The room set the brief. On our first walkthrough, the towering concrete wall felt heavy, cold and lifeless. We wanted something light and organic to bring balance — a living, breathing addition to the space.
“Slant represents the spectrum of Black expression and the benefit of perspective. What the viewer sees is dependent upon where they stand and how they interact with the piece. Slant cannot be fully appreciated until the viewer decides to change their perspective. In that decision, Slant’s complexities are shown through shifting gradients, organic and architectural angles, and interplay with light.”
Our statement, from The Skylyne’s Together We Rise feature, 2021
Credit
Chazen Powell The Jack and Jane
Full collaborator. We make together as The Jack and Jane, and every part of this piece is both of ours.
What went wrong
The planning was rigid. We did multiple sketches with painstaking spreadsheet calculations to determine the spread and blend of colors - and the mock-ups we did in our living room still failed.
What I took from it
The final execution came down to trust: in the vision, in our abilities, and in our teamwork. We had never executed at this scale before.
Outcome
Installed September 2020. The Skylyne interviewed us for its Together We Rise series the following spring.