Geometric Curtain

Geometric Curtain is a site-specific window installation created for the Hilles Gallery at Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut. Installed across the gallery’s two-story windows, the work explores how a textile screen can change the relationship between interior space, the street, and light over the course of a day.

During daylight, overlapping blue, pink, and yellow fabric produces shifting combinations of color. The pieces change in size across the curtain, creating variations in density and depth rather than a uniform surface. As viewers move past the windows, the layered geometry changes what they can see through the screen and how its colors align.

Parametric modeling was used to develop the three-dimensional arrangement and translate it into pieces for fabrication. Drawing on quilting techniques, 604 pieces were sewn together at their edges. Their seams turn a collection of flat fabric shapes into a spatial curtain, while the natural folds of the hanging material add variation beyond the digital model.

After dark, Arduino-programmed electroluminescent wire introduces lines of light across the installation. The curtain shifts from filtering daylight to producing its own illuminated pattern. Because it was visible through the gallery windows, the work could be encountered from the street even when the gallery was closed.

Project information

• Location: Hilles Gallery, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, Connecticut

• Exhibition dates: August 7–September 7, 2015

• Project type: Site-specific window installation

• Materials and technology: Fabric, string, electroluminescent wire, and Arduino

• Fabrication: 604 sewn fabric pieces

• Electrical engineering: Dan Wahl

• Project coverage: “Geometric Curtain,” suckerPUNCH