CSU, Chico News

Aerial views of 50 miles of the Sacramento River, provided by Chuck Nelson, director of the Geographical Information Center (GIS), California State University, Chico, are woven into a carpet for a pedestrian bridge at the airport. Out of the aerial views, artist Seyed Alavi has created “Flying Carpet,” a site-specific project for Sacramento International Airport.

The artist first saw the aerial photography on the Sacramento River Recreational Access Guide Web site created by GIC. The aerial shots were originally taken by the Army Corps of Engineers for a comprehensive study of the river.

The GIC scanned and made mosaics of the color prints for a riparian vegetation mapping project undertaken in 2000 for the Department of Water Resources, the Wildlife Conservation Board and The Nature Conservancy. They also used them on the Sacramento River Guide Web site mentioned above.

Alavi contracted with a carpet company in Dublin, Ireland, to weave a wool carpet for the pedestrian bridge that connects the terminal to the parking garage. The mosaic represents an area that stretches from Colusa to six miles south of Chico.

”The level of detail in the finished carpet is amazing,” said Nelson. “You can see the meanders of the river and the patterns in the fields. A small community with a bridge going over the river is Princeton.”

Alavi, a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, has site-specific installations at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City and the University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach. His public art projects include “Nature of Life” and “A Sense of Unity” in San Jose, “uncovering” in Emeryville and “Forgotten Language” in Palo Alto.

Color copies of other projects are mounted on the walls of the GIC at 35 Main in Chico. “They are beautiful, in and of themselves,” said Nelson. You can see the “Flying Carpet” online.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005 at 8:30 am and is filed under 2005 Spring.