Sara Jimenez: Folding Field

Working in installation, sculpture, collage, and performance, Sara Jimenez is interested in materializing invisible narratives around notions of origins and home, while creating visual metaphors that allude to mythical environments, reimagined artifacts, and the embodiment of transcultural memories. For the 60th Anniversary of Wave Hill, Jimenez has been commissioned to create a new outdoor installation Folding Field, which consists of soft and hard sculptures in three locations across Wave Hill’s grounds. Folding Field is also part of the group exhibition, Trees, we breathe, in Glyndor Gallery. 

A 50-foot-long textile work hangs between the bigleaf linden and white oak trees, while delicate prismatic sculptures on the ground below contain ceramic pieces. The patterns and imagery of all of the works refer to the invisible systems that support the care and growth of the trees at Wave Hill, such as mycorrhizal fungi that sustain symbiotic relationships, sharing and distributing resources and aiding in communication among trees. The design of the textile and prism sculptures are based on data visualizations generated from sound recordings in the soil around specific trees, using contact microphones and audio equipment. Jimenez recorded soil sounds around trees not only in Riverdale, but also in Mott Haven, another Bronx neighborhood in the same congressional district. In addition, she recorded herself reading a section from bell hooks’ All About Love, a book that considers what it means to care and connect. The audio has been translated into visual sound waves, which have also inspired the geometric patterns in the textile work. 

The dominant fuchsia color incorporated into the sculptures relates to the electromagnetic wavelengths of visible light that are best for tree growth—red and blue. Because of this, grow lights often combine red and blue to create a bright fuchsia light that helps plants flourish. At other locations near the Accolade Elm and the two American sweetgum trees, the installation includes ceramic sculptures housed inside triangular steel pyramids, which are inspired by the flowers, fruits, and seeds of angiosperm trees at Wave Hill. Fruiting trees symbolize generational resilience and survival. Through this project, Jimenez asks how concepts of time, geography, borders and connection can shift when the concept of care centers around non-human beings.  

Trees, we breathe is organized by Gabriel de Guzman, Director of Arts and Chief Curator; Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger, Curator of Visual Arts, and Afriti Bankwalla, Curatorial Administrative Assistant.