'Cause & Effect' sculpture on its way up at WWU

The "Cause & Effect" sculpture from internationally renowned artist Do Ho Suh is now being installed in the Academic Instructional Center West building at Western Washington University.

A dedication ceremony for the new piece will be held at 3 p.m. June 8 in the AIC, with the artist himself in attendance.

When it's finished this week, the ceiling installation will be approximately 19 feet high and 8 feet across at its greatest width. As it hangs down from the ceiling of the AIC West building, it will pass through the opening or well on the third floor and extend into the second floor’s well, taking advantage of the building’s architectural design allowing light to pass from floor to floor. At the top there will be a stainless steel plate – from which will hang the individual strands of figures connected by a stainless steel cable; each figure, made of colored acrylic resin, is approximately 5.5 inches high with a frontal view width of 3 inches.

Do Ho Suh uses memories of his childhood in Korea to address issues of interpersonal space, identity, and the transitory qualities of existence in today’s globalized society. The mindset of the individual, coming together as a group, is a topic of great importance in his work, as shown by his artwork at Western.

“’Cause & Effect’ evokes a vicious tornado. This vast ceiling installation is a composition of densely hung strands that anchor thousands of figures clad in colors resembling a Doppler reading stacked atop one another,” said Do Ho Suh in a press release late last year, adding that the artwork is a “physical realization of existence, suggesting strength in the presence of numerous individuals. The work is an attempt to decipher the boundaries between a single identity and a larger group, and how the two conditions coexist.”