During this bike ride I encountered an interesting sculpture I had never seen before. The large stainless steel artwork is located on New Jersey Avenue near H Street (MAP) and just four blocks from the Nationals Park in southeast D.C.’s Navy Yard neighborhood, and it is entitled Shindahiku (Fern Pull).
Shindahiku commands attention. And at 22 feet high by 10 feet 6 inches wide by 6 feet 9 inches deep, and weighing 1,400 pounds, the towering sculpture is hard to miss. But it is much more likely to catch the attention of passersby like me on a windy day, when the piece seems to come alive. That’s because it is a kinetic wind sculpture. It consists of 18 balanced wings that use wind power to rotate around a circular axle, silently swallowing and reopening its stainless-steel “fern fronds.” The effect is a dynamic pattern of movement that can best be described as mesmerizing.
The Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District and developer W.C. Smith purchased Shindahiku early last year, and it was installed just four blocks from Nationals Park on July 12th, 2018, just in time for that year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
Shindahiku was created by the prolific American artist Anthony Howe, a resident of Orcas Island, Washington. Howe has been working on projects like this for more than two decades, including Di-Octo, Shindahiku’s sister sculpture located on Concordia University’s Sir George Williams Campus in Montreal, Canada. These sculptures are said to be inspired by his former part-time occupation of building steel shelves for office storage. Howe’s other works have appeared all over the world, including at the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics, and behind a performance of “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana during the 2017 Oscars, as well as in hundreds of private collections from California to Dubai.
[Click on the photos to view the full-size versions]
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