L’Chime Sukkah


2011
Washington University Campus
St. Louis, MO

With Andy Sternad

A field of wooden chimes is suspended via brightly colored string from a square grid. At all four sides, the chimes extend to just above the ground. At the center, they hang just above one’s head.

To enter the sukkah, visitors must change its shape and push the chimes aside to make a path, causing them to gently knock together. The boundary between inside and out is obscured by the constantly changing enclosure.

The chimes, cut from various lengths and diameters of wooden dowels, yield a chorus of “wood echoes.” The gentle knocking gradually fades to silence as the chimes stop swinging and resume their original positions.