California Cathedral – SAFE Credit Union Convention & Performing Arts District Public Art

Atlas Lab was awarded the public art call for the Sacramento Convention Center. Entitled “California’s Cathedral” the sculpture responds to climate change in California. Towering redwoods, pines, cedars and firs comprise most of California’s hillsides and mountain landscape. This landscape has served as a haven for contemplation, adventure and wonder. Over the last decade, shifting climate patterns, have compromised this landscape, causing a loss of 147 million trees in the state of California. In response, “California’s Cathedrals” highlights this threatened landscape by collecting and reinterpreting the trees lost, into a vertical mosaic. The sculpture itself is a series of wood planks (from salvaged trees lost due to climate change) supported by cylinder frame, that echoes a tree form. Community members are invited to interact with the sculpture through an outward and internal experience. Internally, wood planks frame a view of the sky, as the soaring trees do in the landscape—evoking a contemplative and whimsical experience.