View of the Event 01

Year: 2013
Type: Public Art
Location: Flint, MI, USA
Design team: Jae K. Kim
Exhibition: Flint Public Art Festival

View of the Event 02

View of the Event 03

Reclaim and Transform

Cloud is a public art installation. As an object, it is a tensile structure designed and built using the same structural logic as Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Sphere. Like Bucky’s Sphere, Cloud illustrates how the configuration of simple joints creates complex geometry. As a phenomenon, the installed object creates an illusion: its suspension in mid-air defies structural expectations. By inviting viewers to experience the unexpected, Cloud elevates an object to a work of public art.

The conceptual meaning of Cloud expands beyond its physical scale. Cloud reclaims a seemingly discarded place with the use of a disposable material. The object is primarily constructed using plastic straws collected from the installation’s neighboring shops. The project’s location, Chevy in the Hole, is the former site of a now demolished automotive manufacturing plant in Flint, MI. Public art offers a way to reuse an abandoned place by hosting new events and experiences. The concepts of reuse, reclaim, and transform are fundamental to the Cloud project.