Photo Credit: Iwan Baan
Photo Credit: Iwan Baan
Artsource Consulting is delighted to announce the opening of Mirage, a public sculpture by artist Katie Paterson and architectural studio Zeller & Moye. Located in the olive grove adjacent to the Visitor’s Center at Apple Park, Mirage (2023) includes over four hundred glass columns that weave through and amongst the olive trees. The pillars of pure cast glass are made with sand collected from deserts across the Earth. Mirage has been cast in whole single glass cylinders – each 6′ 7″ high – by expert glass makers, with guidance from material scientists. Unique glass recipes were formulated for each desert resulting in pillars with subtle variations of color and texture. Innovative methods of working with glass at this scale were invented, in combination with techniques from the origins of glass making.
Photo Credit: Iwan Baan
Photo Credit: Iwan Baan
Together the columns combine the world’s deserts transformed into liquid-like material, flowing like a dune shaped by the wind. Mirage is a global artwork. In the spirit of co-operation, sand was sustainably collected, in partnership with UNESCO, geologists and communities across the world’s desert regions. The artwork celebrated each of the lands from which it is created, and the people who nurture, conserve, and sustain these lands.
Mirage has a strong material presence, connecting to the elements and reflecting the environment. In daytlight the sculpture varies in iridescence, and in the evening it gently glows. The experience of watching the light fall through becomes a form of meditation; time standing still. Visitors can interact with the artwork, walking alongside and through, where the glass appears to subtly melt into the landscape, like a desert mirage.
Mirage creates a moment of pause, inviting all visitors to slow down, and tune into the immensity and preciousness of our planet. Nothing of its kind exists anywhere else on Earth.
Explore the artwork:
Photo Credit: Iwan Baan
Photo Credit: Iwan Baan
“Sand, so ubiquitous across Earth, is a marker of time. Mirage creates an experience of being enveloped by Earth’s sublime spaces. Each piece of glass is a portal to otherworldly landscapes. The artwork is dreamlike: the colors are contemplative, and the glass has a natural radiance, creating infinite reflections. Our hope is that Mirage creates a sensory experience that will ignite the imagination, connect visitors to the vastness of the Earth, and its precious wilderness.” Katie Paterson
“Visitors experience Mirage by walking along columns that reveal stories of the world’s deserts. The sculpture unfolds piece by piece, through gradually shifting in color, surface texture and material consistencies.” Christoph Zeller
“The structure is designed in balance with nature. The glass bars are arranged as a series of curved walls that meander through the grid of olive trees defining semi-enclosed space similar to an interior garden. The spatial composition activates the existing park landscape by creating an unexpected social and contemplative gathering place for visitors and staff to relax, to lay down on the grass, to have a picnic or play.” Ingrid Moye
Photo Credit: Iwan Baan
About Katie Paterson
Katie Paterson (born 1981, Scotland) is widely regarded as one of the leading artists of her generation. Collaborating with scientists and researchers across the world, Paterson’s projects consider our place on Earth in the context of geological time and change. Combining a romatic sensibility with a research-based approach, conceptual rigor and coolly minimalist presentation, her work collapses the distance between the viewer and the most distant edges of time and the cosmos. Her artworks make use of sophisticated technologies and specialst expertise to stage intimate, poetic and philosophical engagements between people and their natural environment.
Katie Paterson has exhibited internationally, from London to New York, Berlin to Seoul, and her works have been included in major exhibitions including Turner Contemporary, Hayward Gallery, Tate Britain, Kunsthalle Wien, MCA Sydney, Guggenheim Museum and The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
About Zeller & Moye
Zeller & Moye was founded by Christoph Zeller (born 1974, Germany) and Ingrid Moye (born 1984, Mexico) as an architectural studio that operates with an interdisciplinary and global approach, with offices in Mexico City and Berlin. Their practice covers a wide range of typologies and scales, from object design to large buildings, working frequently at the boundaries of architecture, art and design. Zeller & Moye’s projects aim to engage with the public realm and address social and sustainability issues while seeking for opportunities to go beyond boundaries and striving for the unexpected.
The studio has won the Panamerican Architecture Biennial of Quito in 2020, has been awarded as Design Vanguard by Architectural Record in 2023, and was recognized as one of the 100 influential designers worldwide by AD magazine. Christoph Zeller and Ingrid Moye are program directors of the Visiting School Mexico for the Architectural Association London. As writers, lecturers and guest critics at various universities they frequently contribute to the discourse on architecture and design.
Photo credit: Hunter Kerhart
Mirage at Apple Park, 10600 N Tantau Avenue, Cupertino, California. Open every day, free to everyone.
Mirage is located adjacent to the Apple Park Visitor Center. The artwork is slightly set back from the street and pedestrian pathways. It has three entrances and pathways which are fully accessible. The Apple Park Visitor Center is open 10-6 daily, Monday through Saturday, and open 11-6 on Sundays.
