Watch as we install Sandra Selig’s mid-air installation

Sandra Selig, Australia b.1972 / mid‑air 2003 / Nylon thread, Styrofoam / 364 x 955 x 580cm (installed, approx.) / Purchased 2004 with funds from John Potter and Roz MacAllan through the QAG Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Sandra Selig

Sandra Selig, Australia b.1972 / mid‑air 2003 / Nylon thread, Styrofoam / 364 x 955 x 580cm (installed, approx.) / Purchased 2004 with funds from John Potter and Roz MacAllan through the QAG Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Sandra Selig / View full image

Sandra Selig’s installation practice concerns the site-specific interpretation of architectural spaces. The volume and form of space, air and light are evoked by works that employ the delicate, refined materials of nylon, plastics, cotton threads and pins.

…I’ve always been interested in shapes and the formlessness of form. These thread pieces are an attempt to sketch an object in an architectural space that perhaps removes weight or which, momentarily, forgets its density of form.

mid-air 2003 comprises differently sized styrofoam balls ‘beaded’ intermittently on lengths of clear nylon thread. Two sets of these ‘strings’, arranged in tubular compositions, span both the length and the breadth of the space, bisecting at approximate right angles. The threads create a fine ‘film’ of colourless texture and the appearance of the work shifts as the viewer passes around it.

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