Sunset
2024
Deadstock satin fabric, polyester thread, webbing, wood, elastic cord
580ft x 24ft x 6ft
Sunset was an outdoor installation of twenty-four satin banners hung on a historic steel mill in Roebling, NJ. Roebling Steel fabricated the wire cables for 100s of suspension bridges and many other uses from elevators to military nets. The mill closed and the site was remediated and renovated into a museum of the mill’s history.
On the 50th anniversary of the mill’s closure, this installation created an abstract sunset design that stretched across the steel mill’s former scrapyard. Sunset refers to the closure of the Roebling Mill, the color gradient of steel when it is melted, and the dwindling of the fossil fuels used by the mill for power. The length of each banner corresponded with the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere every three years from the time the mill opened in 1905 to its closure in 1974.
This project was commissioned by the Roebling Museum as their inaugural artist residency, funded by a Burlington County Local Arts Grant and the New Jersey Council on the Arts.
Lynne Calamia - Curator
Pierre Lacombe - Stress Test Technician
Heidi Ratanavanich - Installation Technician