Yona Lee: Fountain in Transit
Yona Lee: Fountain in Transit
Watch Yona Lee’s incredible under-stairs sculpture for Te Puna o Waiwhetū come to life in this behind-the-scenes documentary of its origins and installation.
Combining the intimacy of a domestic bathroom with the exuberance of a civic fountain, Yona Lee's new site-specific sculpture brings a lively, restorative energy to an understairs space. Fountain in Transit was commissioned by the Christchurch Art Gallery Foundation to celebrate the Gallery building’s twentieth anniversary and responds to its name – Te Puna o Waiwhetū – which can be translated as ‘water in which stars are reflected’. Using flowing arrangements made from the kind of stainless-steel tubing associated with urban spaces and public transportation, Lee connects us with the Gallery’s architecture and history and draws on connections between water and wellbeing, opening a space for reflection and regeneration.
Yona Lee Fountain in Transit 2024. Stainless steel and objects. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, commissioned by the Christchurch Art Gallery Foundation to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Gallery building; purchased with special thanks to Joanna Hickman, Charlotte and Marcel Gray, Janice Cowdy, Dame Adrienne Stewart and other generous individuals, 2024