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Shawn Lani is a senior artist and curator of the Exploratorium’s Outdoor Gallery and other outdoor works. His Outdoor team created site-specific installations and commissionied a wide range of artists to help enrich and enliven the museum’s new home at Pier 15. In addition to their work at the piers, the Outdoor team is actively developing and installing public works throughout the Bay Area. As principal investigator for the NSF-funded project Ciencia Publica, Shawn led the development of portable and public interactions in predominantly Latino neighborhoods, working in partnership with San Francisco city planners and advocates for urban improvements. Shawn has also created pieces for the NSF-funded Outdoor Exploratorium: Experiments in Noticing. The project team installed twenty outdoor pieces at Fort Mason, a unique urban national park in San Francisco. In addition, as a member of the NOAA/Exploratorium Vision Council, Shawn advocates for artworks that create intimate experiences with broad implications. An active public artist, Shawn has participated in several national and international artist-in-residencies. His creations are installed in more than fifty museums worldwide, and he is the recipient of a National American Institute of Architects award for the monumental LIGO Wind Wall installation in Livingston, Louisiana.
Related Exhibits
These upside down, bike-powered machines are built to throw ropes twenty feet into the air. Acting a bit like water and a bit like rope, the loops dance along the ground as visitors play an Exploratorium-style game of jump rope.
Where: Gallery 5: Outdoor Exhibits
The timing of the eruptions of these geysers depends on water temperature and pressure.
Where: Gallery 4: Living Systems
Like comets, these chunks of dry ice slowly disintegrate as they move, leaving a visible trail of condensed water vapor.
"Clouds" of iron particles dart and dance in a magnetic field.
Where: Gallery 2: Tinkering
A rotating structure made of laths casts shadows that slowly change, calling to mind the shifting light of a day or a season and producing unexpected variations. Benches allow for relaxation and quiet watching.
Where: Gallery 5: Outdoor Exhibits
Floating orange arrows turn a series of leftover pilings into a visual representation of water movement into and out of the Bay. As tides rise and fall, the arrows travel up and down the pilings, swiveling to point the direction of the water flow.
Where: This exhibit is not currently on view.