A commission by Judith Marcuse for the Earth Project and Breaking New Ground, a gathering for artists, community workers, environmentalists, social activists, educators, policy-makers and youth from across Canada and around the world.

Shelter, a meeting pavillion, was conceived as a place to connect.

The installation, as a tensile structure of lightweight bamboo arches, stands as a symbol of connections, both at the social dimension and at the natural dimension; represents the dynamic links that weave societies and the intricate tissue that links them with the environment. The cover – overlapping sections of fabric impregnated with earth pigments– stands as a collective skin, a tissue of interdependence and a territory of encounters.

The installation draws its inspiration from various traditional architectures from around the world. Bamboo and other flexible grasses, twigs and woods have been used for millennia as building materials, and bark, leaves, animal skins, felts, fabrics or mud as cover. Nomadic people, in particular, have developed lightweight, portable structures, or ephemeral ones.

It is an earth architecture that grows as part of nature, as it is made of it…structures that are more than dwellings that protect from the elements -- they are the nest, the meeting place and the temple; the skin of the community; and a model of the cosmos in a single powerful symbol. These societies, when living in an intimate and spiritual balance with their habitat, draw from it a sense of belonging and purpose.

Ehen, the Tuareg tent, the Mongolian yurta, the Navajo’s sweat lodge, the reed mudhif of the Marshmen of southern Iraq, the Zulu indlu, the plain Indians tepee, the Amazonian maloka, the Yanomami shabono – all these shelters are a metaphor of the Earth.

Basketry around the world is rich in shapes woven from natural fibers, shapes that properly translated into bigger structures result into strong, flexible frames. The natural world provided examples of similar structures. Among them, nests and shells, like the nest of the weaver finch or the nautilus shell: Shell, symbol of the power of creation and natural order.

The Spiral, the Uterus Mundi, generating matrix of the world, is Earth as Shelter

Dimension: about 15 x 18 feet, 9 feet maximum high.
Environmental sound from tropical rain forests, temperate forests and seashores.

The EARTH Project is a multi-nation arts initiative by Judith Marcuse that explores issues of global sustainability and social justice through the eyes of young people. A network of arts organizations from the North and the South, which work with, and for, teenagers.