In 2010 together with Nici Long, Jed Long, and Lachlan Brown we founded Cave Urban; a multidisciplinary studio that explores the use of bamboo and its relevance to contemporary design. What started as a research-based practice looking into vernacular lightweight structures, has developed into a practice that bases itself at the point where Art and Architecture intersect.
I feel very privileged being the Creative Director of Cave Urban. It is a creative zone in which I have finally been able to mesh together my passions for Art and Design. It has provided a beautiful environment for both possibilities of new collaborations and new friendships to evolve; a family that seems to grow larger with every project.
The following are a selection of Cave Urban’s Bamboo Art Installations to which I feel a particularly strong connection. A more extended portfolio is available at www.caveurban.com
Sydney - Australia
Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, 2019
Dimensions: 4.5m x 20m x 15m
Lead Artists: Juan-Pablo, Lachlan Brown
Team: Jed Long, Mercurio Alvarado, Seb Guy, Max Volfneuk
Engineering: Partridge
Long before we had a notion that the world might be round, human beings have been both intrigued and beguiled by bubbles. Bubbles may be playfully blown into the air by children, or may arrive violently onshore in great drifts of ocean spume. In art, the bubble endures as a symbol of the transience of existence, whilst in science, its form is often extolled as the perfect consolidation of efficiency and strength.
The project "Transience" is a conglomeration of large woven bamboo domes which have a correlation to the structure and appearance of bubbles. The viewer is invited to explore the juxtaposition of inside and out, and to note the strength of bamboo as a material with which to build deceptively ephemeral and fragile shapes.
This project was kindly sponsored by the Transfield Australian Invited Artist Program
Hervey Bay - Australia
World Whale Conference 2019
Dimensions: 6m x 3m x 4.5m
Lead Artist: Juan-Pablo
Team: Mercurio Alvarado, Lachlan Brown, Seb Guy, Jed Long Engineering: Partridge
When a baby Humpback calf is born, it comes out swimming tail-first, weighing about as much as a family car and suckling up to 600 litres of its mother’s milk per day. Starting in the warm waters off North Queensland, the pair stick close together as they begin a 5000km journey south to Antarctica. With not even a quarter of this maiden voyage having been completed, many whales are accustomed to making a pit stop within the shelter of the immense north-facing opening of Hervey Bay, and will usually stay there for weeks at a time.
For mothers and their young, this is a crucial time for gaining strength and fostering life skills. However, it is also a blissful time of bonding between mother and calf, and we can see this in their exuberant displays of breaching and tail-slapping. As bystanders, we are extremely lucky to be able to bare witness to this. If there is a place that could be described as sacred in the 50-year, million-kilometre lives of Queensland Humpbacks, surely Hervey Bay has to be it.
Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, 2016
Sydney - Australia
Dimensions: 3m x 3m x 3m
Lead Artist: Juan-Pablo
Team: Jed Long, Nici Long, Mercurio Alvarado, Lachlan Brown, Seb Guy, Ned Long
Engineering: Event Engineering
Photography: Mercurio Alvarado
Sunrise and sunset are twins in spectacle but strangers in meaning. This paradox of the sun begins and ends with a golden hour on the horizon. In a single day, the sun heralds renewal and extinction.
The bamboo sphere is balanced at the edge of the headland overlooking iconic Bondi Beach, aligned with the horizon. Tension mounts as we wait for the magical moment where a golden disc touches the line between sea and sky. The sculpture invites viewers to step inside and experience this twice daily phenomenon through a filter of woven bamboo.
Art + About, Sydney, 2015
Sydney - Australia
Dimensions: 24m x 6m x 6m
Lead Artist: Juan-Pablo, Lachlan Brown
Project Team: Nici Long, Jed Long, Mercurio Alvarado, Seb Guy, Ned Long, Alice Nivison
Engineering: Event Engineering
Private Collection: Woodfordia, QLD Australia
This 24m tall sculpture was selected for Sydney’s Art and About Festival.
The tower draws its name, inspiration, and materials from a hillside farm near Kin Kin, Queensland – where giant stands of bamboo invoke awe in anyone who stands beneath them.
It was first exhibited on the forecourt of Sydney’s Customs House and then relocated to the Woodford Folk Festival precinct in Queensland, where it now stands as a central landmark.
Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, 2014
Sydney - Australia
Dimensions: 12m x 3m x 3m
Lead Artists: Lachlan Brown, Juan-Pablo, Jed Long
Team: Nici Long, Mercurio Alvarado, Ned Long
Engineering: Event Engineering
Photography: Mercurio Alvarado
Private Collection: Yabby Lakes Vineyard, Mornington Peninsula
Save Our Souls is a meditation on the lighthouse in contemporary Australia. Once essential for safely guiding ships to shore, the lighthouse is now a technological relic. This effigy embodies the duality of the lighthouse, signalling both welcome and warning for seafaring travellers to Australian shores.
The redundancy of the lighthouse addresses a shift in Australia that is all at once technological, cultural, and political.
Hobart - Australia
Dimensions: 50m x 10m x 7mLead Designers: Juan-Pablo, Jed Long, Nici Long, UTAS MArch StudentsTeam: Lachlan Brown, Mercurio Alvarado, Seb Guy, Alice Nivison, Ned Long, Maddi BrandtEngineering: Event Engineering
Run as an intensive design studio for the Master of Architecture Students at the University of Tasmania, the 50m-long bamboo pavilion hosted advertising agency Clemenger’s Hot House forum on education followed by Dark MOFO’s Winter-feast. In the centre, two pot-belly fireplaces made with recycled steel by Chilean sculptor Carolina Pinto kept visitors warm in the depths of the Tasmanian winter. The pavilion was sponsored by Hobart’s Museum of Old & New Art (MONA). Dark Mofo, Tasmania 2016.
ART + CLIMATE = CHANGE Festival, St Kilda, 2017
Melbourne - Australia
Extended Exhibition: Gasworks Art Park 2017-2019, Melbourne
Dimensions: 3m x 6m x3m
Lead Artist: Juan-Pablo
Team: Mercurio Alvarado, Seb Guy, Jed Long, Max Volfneuk
Engineering: Event Engineering
Regenesis evokes a cocoon or chrysalis that has opened at one end. In response to the festival’s focus on climate change, the sculpture explores the transformative power of a natural cocoon inserted into an urban setting. Visitors are invited to climb inside and inhabit the intimate, nest-like environment.
The sculpture gives time for contemplation and transformation. Like larvae transformed into butterflies, the sculpture evokes notions of change and transformation.
Regenesis was exhibited for one month in Acland Street Plaza, St Kilda; it was then relocated to Melbourne’s Gasworks Art Park for an extended exhibition.