SET SAILS

Set Sails was a large-scale public art installation created for the Peabody Essex Museum Gala Event in September 2019. This temporary sculpture was located on the public esplanade outside the entrance to the Museum where guests could start their experience of the memorable evening with an immersive installation. 

The theme of the installation was inspired by the nautical history of Salem and the Maritime Art Gallery, opening for the first time for the Gala guests, in the newest wing of the iconic museum.

The installation featured seven sculptural elements, each representing a large sail and positioned in a subtle array like a series of jibs turning like a flight of birds into the wind. Each “sail” was internally lit with a single color. Over the course of a few minutes, the colors in each sail would gradually shift through the rainbow in a perfectly timed sequence, resulting in an endlessly changing rainbow of glowing light. 

Guests to the event and the general public were both welcome to enter the installation. They had the opportunity to explore the succession of repeated shapes and to take photographs within the walls of glowing light.