Linda Fleming

It was exciting to participate in the first exhibition in 1986 when the land was barely reclaimed from an urban dump, and it is doubly significant to be part of the 10th anniversary exhibition. Socrates Park has continued to grow and affect the lives of so many people during its 10 years of life. The Cloak of Motion is part of a series of rotational, planetoid works that began during my residency at La vie des Formes in 1991. This work is a diagram of matter in motion as well as an attempt to map the structure of the universe. It reflects my excitement with the scientific contraptions of 17th century natural philosophers and our continuing attempt to understand the physical world by building devices to conjure the territory of our investigation.

“Luz y Linda” and “River Rise” were constructed as Socrates Sculpture Park was being coaxed out of a vacant lot. The first time I walked out onto the land, it was a tangle of weeds dotted with rubble. I kept looking for something to stand on so that I could get an overview of the land meeting the river, but there were no rises. When I was invited to build sculpture benches for the park, I decided to build forms that would encourage people to climb and stand on, as well as sit and lie down upon them.

It was a treat to work on tthe site, chainsawing in the sun by the river in June. The raw energy of transformation was contagious. At the end of each day, some of my crew and I would startle fellow passengers as we boarded the subway, sunburned and exhausted, covered as we were with sawdust, but talking excitedly about the birth of a community park.