What may at first seem like a small dune or a small Dutch dike, transforms into a liquid landscape the moment you set foot onto it. Walking onto the 50m2 artwork, the surface begins to move, and gentle ripples occur in the grass. A carefully designed collage of local soil and water is buried in the Italian ground and covered with a custom-made flexible container of nutrients and grass. As more visitors step onto the artwork, the ripples become more vibrant, symbolising our ecological footprint.
LIQUID LANDSCAPE is a permanent public artwork commissioned by the contemporary open-air museum Arte Sella in Italy. Roosegaarde was asked to create something with a challenging framework: no use of electricity, no use of artificial light, low maintenance, robust for decades, yet interactive to people.
"LIQUID LANDSCAPE is radical new sculpture thinking; as an anti-sculpture it is almost invisible in which the visitor is invited to become the artwork." - Emanuele Montibeller, art curator Arte Sella. By inviting visitors to interact and play, LIQUID LANDSCAPE challenges conventional expectations of sculpture, and our perspective of materiality with a solid transforming into liquid.
Against the background of the solid Alpine mountain surrounded by nature and the seasons, the artwork symbolises the change in our climate. We think our world is static, but it is not; it is continuously changing. LIQUID LANDSCAPE playfully inspires visitors to re-appreciate their relationship with nature and its impact on Earth as a call to action.