The Blade Project seeks additional funding

This is a guest blog by Jane Cooperman, who is an artist creating “The Blade Project” along with Tom Mapp, with a generous donation from Suzlon Wind Energy Corporation. They are seeking other companies or individuals who would like to participate.

We have an idea to unite art and science. We want to take a single blade of a wind turbine, cover it with a coat of phosphorescent paint and bring it up close to better appreciate the science that generated its efficient form and the art to which it so closely relates. Art, at its best, draws new conversation, encourages education and challenges the norm. The Blade Project provides the opportunity to highlight both the technological progress of the industry and the beauty of the industry. A massive blade, the latest iteration of our long history harnessing the wind, is a gorgeous object in its own right, but with the vital function of providing us clean energy. Let us celebrate hope!

The mathematically generated, functional blade designs result in objects of startling beauty. These forms dramatically extend the modernist idea of 20th Century sculpture and are as much about art as science. The sheer drama of this blade, well above the ground, alive in light and shadow, can’t fail to inspire a marriage of thought and conversation about form, function, and the future. Our goal is for The Blade Project to raise awareness, foster education and shift the general perception of these objects from blight to beauty.

Suzlon Wind Energy Corporation generously donated a blade to the project. The Chicago Park District, through its forward thinking leadership, has offered us a prime site location on the Museum Campus between the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium and Burnham Harbor. As Melville’s majestic white whale somehow epitomized man’s struggle with nature in the 19th Century, these gorgeous creations symbolize that relationship today. There may be no finer example of pure form following function than one of these blades, derived by algorithm to cleanly turn the wind into the power that lights our way. Symbols encourage insight and galvanize action. Let this glowing single blade represent the vision of the wind community providing a clean way forward. The planned installation of the Blade Project on the Chicago lakefront is August, 2015. We need your help to finance the installation. If you believe this symbol stands for an era in which form and function unite to lead us into the future please stand with us and contribute to The Blade Project.

To find out how, please contact me at coopermanjane@gmail.com or 219-926-8940. Or meet Susan Harris at the Suzlon Wind Energy Corporation booth at the WINDPOWER 2015 Conference & Exhibition.

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