Life Section Studio

Life Section Studio

portfolio of works by Elisabeth Vitswamba


Sargasso was an installation commissioned by the 2011 LuminaTO festival, a two week long, city-wide festival celebrating the arts in Toronto. The installation was named after the sargasso in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, a conglomeration of foreign materials that is an eco-system in its own right. Sargasso is likewise a metaphorical embodiment of a living scaffold that has the potential to build up on itself.

professional work completed with Philip Beesley Architect in Toronto, Ontario

role of co-lead designer and coordinator of schematic design, design development, production, and installation.

The sculpture consisted of an outer veil that swept down to the floor and back up again, creating an enclosure and a place of pause in the Brookfield Place Gallery in Downtown, a space that is always on the move. Above and overlapping this enclosed area was an inner veil that consisted of a rich and layered reactive environment that used Arduinos and microprocessors to trigger physical movements and sounds in response to occupants.