When government officials decided to pave a little piece of urban paradise to put up a new parking garage next to the Museum of Natural History, they inadvertently inspired a new piece of public artwork entitled “Soft Landing.” The installation will now greet thousands of visitors who enter the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel.
Carrie Phillips Kieser was volunteering at the museum when the trees that occupied the urban green space were cut down to make room for the structure. “I was volunteering in their herbarium collection with their botany curator, and they kept one of those trees,” she says. “He catalogued every single lichen, moss, liverwort—epiphyte—that was growing on this urban tree. It was a way to say that a tree in an urban space is more than just a tree. It’s an architecture and form for all of this other plant life to grow from.”
Soon, she was heading into the lush forest of the Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lake Wilderness Area to explore these tiny worlds within our world. “You go into the forest and you look down, and there’s a forest within a forest,” says Phillips Kieser. “There are tiny trees and mosses, and this whole world inside this bigger world.”
Her body of work grew from that space.
When Phillips Kieser saw the posting for Nocturne’s public art project partnership with the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront and began developing her proposal, then saw that the theme for Nocturne 2024 was “Microcosm,” she knew her work exploring worlds within our natural world would be the perfect fit.
“My work is very line-based,” she says. “Even though it’s also very organic, flowing, and plant-like, there is structure and precision underlying it. I make work that is both tiny and delicate as well as hands-on and contemplative. It’s work that asks the viewer how they will negotiate their way through a space like that. Like with plant life, when you hold it, you have to be careful and thoughtful.”
Her intricate, ethereal, and detailed artwork depicts imagery from local coastal boreal region and inland woodlands of Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia. The work draws inspiration from the cloud-like structures of Cladonia stellaris (star-tipped reindeer lichen), the feathery plumes of the Ptilium crista-castrensis (ostrich plume moss), and the meandering Gaultheria hispidula (creeping snowberry).
Her drawings have been enlarged and overlay the glass front entryway and rotating doors that all visitors to the hotel pass through when they enter or exit the building. Phillips Kieser envisions the work as a “jewel case” that people can walk through and be held within.
Phillips Kieser wants to start a dialogue with people about our current ecological crisis. But rather than focus on climate grief and the sadness or anger that can accompany those conversations, her approach is a bit quieter—a “Soft Landing,” if you will.
“How can you use art to fall in love and then start the conversation about what’s happening, rather than just showing the doom and gloom, fire and brimstone, and fear?” she asks. “How can I be more quiet and still invite people in to have a moment of conversation about why I’m doing this?”
Phillips Kieser’s installation will remain on display until April 2025 and is made possible thanks to a partnership between Nocturne and the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront to support local, emerging artists.
If you’re interested in discussing potential partnership opportunities with Nocturne, please contact:
< Back to Articles | Topics: Trends