David (Red Study), Boston, MA, 2026
Description
David (Red Study) intertwines genomic research with a deeply personal narrative of life and loss. It grew from a dialogue beginning in 2014 between Echelman, her late husband and Studio Echelman’s chief technologist David Feldman, and researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. During the final year of Feldman’s life, he participated in a Harvard clinical trial for personalized cancer vaccines, for which the Broad Institute conducted genomic analysis. His genomic sequence became part of the artwork itself, translated by Echelman into the color patterns woven across its loomed net panels.
Two expansive netted forms loop through space and interlace with one another, alternately separating, overlapping, and reconnecting. Their intertwined geometry recalls the way genetic material folds and organizes itself within the cell, forming loops that bring distant regions into proximity. The sculpture expands this microscopic condition to the scale of architecture, transforming folding, knotting, and interconnection into spatial experiences that shift as viewers move around and beneath the work.
The sculpture introduces a new structural approach within Echelman’s practice. Rather than relying upon a secondary structural net, its loomed panels are supported by an interconnected tensile system of knotted ropes. The apparent weightlessness of the sculpture conceals a precisely calibrated network in which each element transfers forces through a very sophisticated, geometrically optimized structure system.
Computational simulation allows the designers, mathematicians, structural consultants, and fabricators to develop and test this complex geometry. A suspended scale maquette then brings the digital system into physical form, revealing how the ropes settle, how knots behave, and how the sculpture’s layers meet and overlap. Both a preparatory study and an independent artwork, the maquette explores personal content alongside new geometric and structural possibilities. It is a working prototype where computational design meets craft.
Credits
Artist: Janet Echelman
Studio Echelman Team: Daniel Alexander Smith, Anisha Chakrabarty, Svetlana Stepanova, Danielle Efrat, Vivian Tran, Maria Cazzato
Rope Fabrication Specialist: Marc St-Antoine, Dominic Clement
Photography: Svetlana Stepanova
Location
Studio Echelman, Boston, MA, USA