Location: Bay Adelaide Centre, North Tower, 40 Temperance Street, Toronto, M5H 1Y4
About the work
This bas-relief artwork, a subtraction rather than an addition to the white marble of the lobby, evokes a topographical map. Each tile, cut with a robotic router, reproduces a complex and multifaceted network of roots, recalling both natural and artificial systems of organization.
The network -of the tree structure, the rhizome, and reticular development -is the richest and most promising metaphor of our time. It is a dominant reference to contemporary thought, evoking the infrastructure of technical and communication macrosystems (a network of networks), and underscores a host of essential disciplines that operate within the building in which it is exhibited. The network is about organic growth, geological formations and biological systems, as well as the interconnectedness of the systems that shape our lives.
Mappemonde was created in 2022 under the City of Toronto’s Percent for Public Art Program.