If you’ve been putting off popping by the National Museum of Natural History to see the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, you’re about to miss your chance altogether. The reef closes April 24, 2011 so you’d best stop dallying.
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"Sound weird? It's magnificent."
“NASA’s ‘Extreme Planet Makeover’; Crochet Coral Reef at the Smithsonian”
By Rachel Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 7, 2011; 2:44 PM
Art and scienceAnd the rest of us just knit scarves . . . Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, National Museum of Natural History
An impressive exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History ties together art and science with yards and yards of sparkly yarn. The “Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef” is, amazingly, just what it sounds like: an enormous crocheted coral reef created by hundreds of local crafters, a spinoff from the worldwide Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project. (“Hyperbolic” refers to a kind of geometry that appears in some natural forms, including corals and sponges.) Sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim launched the project in 2005 in their Los Angeles living room to promote ecological awareness and highlight the need for conservation. There are miniature beaded-crochet sea anemones, woolen jellyfish and a plastic portion of the reef, created to bring attention to ocean pollution. Sound weird? It’s magnificent. The exhibit runs through April 24.
(You can go visit the page to read about NASA – I quoted the whole section about the coral because it was a difficult article to find online in the first place).
I’m a docent at the reef and I’m usually there on Tuesdays but I won’t be there today, unfortunately.
Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef opens tomorrow at the Smithsonian
Starting tomorrow, Saturday, October 16, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History there will be a temporary exhibit depicting a coral reef and related eco-system. The reef is constructed of crocheted coral made of yarn, found objects, and recycled materials. The reef is installed in the Sant Ocean Hall, on the first floor of the museum.
The Smithsonian community reef is a satellite project that’s part of a larger project created by the Institute for Advanced Figuring, “an organization dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts.”
Here’s IFF Co-Founder Margaret Wertheim’s TED Talk, “Margaret Wertheim on the beautiful math of coral.”
Other satellite reefs have been constructed in other places and there are more on the horizon, the Institute’s website has more information on that schedule.
I was pleased to be able to to contribute a number of pieces of coral that I made, which are now part of the Smithsonian’s permanent collection.
I was able to some devote some time to the assemblage and curation process and I can tell you – with no bias at all – that the reef looks amazing!*
More information about the exhibit can be found here and there will be lots of family-oriented activities in the exhibit area tomorrow, starting at 11. The reef will be on display until April 24, 2011.
*Maybe a little bias, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true!