Eco Rhythms - Rhythmics

Athena Tacha (born 1936, Larissa, Greece)

Eco Rhythms, 1996 and Rhythmics, 1997

Granite and Concrete

280 -granite slabs, 16 in. X 16 in.

Concrete steps – 43 ft. w X 30 ft. w

Location: Inside Ecology Building and outside of Gymnasium, Saint Paul campus

This artwork (Eco-Rhythms) is not a didactic or comprehensive exhibition; it is a visual poem about ecology and its themes. The aim was to create a coherent visual narrative of the multi-faceted and interwoven disciplines that constitute ecology with evolution, paleoecology, animal behavior, community ecology and its various other aspects. The work evokes the wonders of Earth’s living systems and their interrelationships with the human species, and the passion scientists feel for researching these subjects. The artwork is not just about images, but their combinations in groupings that create a vivid and rhythmic spatial-temporal experience as one walks through the building on the way to related biological sciences buildings. The images in stone respond to each other like musical motifs in a symphony.

There is a related sculpture (Rhythmics) on the grass berm in front of the nearby Gymnasium building. It consists of a series of concrete terraces made up of freeform steps. This work was conceived too for its rhythmic forms that embody much of what athletic games and exercises are about, as the ancient Greek word eurhythmics signifies. The steps can be used as an occasional amphitheater or for resting in the adjacent grand oak tree’s shadow.