Artist Janet Echelman’s soft-fiber Current installation premiered over the weekend in Columbus, Ohio, adding the city to a list of others to have showcased her experiments with site-specific sculptures and computational design since 2009.

Stretching to a total of 126 feet at its zenith, the 229-foot-long sculpture is made from 78 miles of twine strewn into more than 550,000 individual knots and cast from the facades of buildings located at the intersection of Gay and High Streets.

Echelman says she “absorbed” herself in Columbus’ local history for the creation of the commission, which has seen antecedents installed in Oslo, Santiago, New York, and other major metropolises on three continents so far.

She describes further: “I witnessed exceptional cooperation to achieve this public goal and came to understand firsthand what is nationally referred to as the Columbus Way. I hope that Current captures that idea of interconnectedness and creates a space where people feel a sense of community and sanctuary. And I love that this artwork literally laces into the fabric of the city over the public street, because it’s a place that everyone feels entitled to be present.”

The sculpture works by stretching a net-like malleable form composed of hundreds of thousands of individual nylon knots, activating the three-dimension space between buildings while illuminating at night a downtown area that's being remade into “a place that everyone feels entitled to be present.”

The piece will be de-installed by the Columbus Museum of Art at the beginning of winter and re-installed in spring in reflection of the season’s change. Echelman explains: “As an artist, I follow nature. And I hope the winter functions like the absence of a lover, giving us a chance to experience [the piece] anew each spring.”

A time-lapse video of the installation process can be viewed below.

Video courtesy Janet Echelman Inc.