DÔME DO, WE (A Space For Rest)
After Yukihisa Isobe’s Air Dome

As part of the Community of Images exhibition, we are pleased to invite artist and urban planner Yukihisa Isobe to revisit his connection to Philadelphia and New York City of the 1960s and ‘70s. The forthcoming project will reflect on Isobe’s innovative and socially-engaged work. Grounded by his artistic practice and experiences as a postgraduate student at The University of Pennsylvania, Isobe worked with organizations including the NYC Dept. of Parks & Recreation and The Phoenix House (a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility). In 1970 Isobe presented a large-scale inflatable artwork titled Air Dome to mark the first Earth Day celebration at New York City’s Union Square. 

In the 2024 interpretation of Air Dome, Philadelphia artist Aaron Igler will lead the design and programming of a community-built dome structure titled DÔME DO.WE (a space for reset). The project was conceived as a site for collaborative skillshare, small group dialog, a lecture program, sonic performances, film screening, and more. 

Sited within the monumental Sycamore grove of Eakins Oval on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and rooted in the concept of mutually-supporting systems, DÔME DO.WE (a space for reset) will investigate geodetic models as they relate to Isobe’s work, contextualized by his creative influences including the pioneering landscape architect Ian McHarg (UPenn) and the architect/futurist Buckminster Fuller, who each developed groundbreaking ideas focused on humans relational role within built and biological environments as a way of better understanding, managing, and preserving the earth.

Artistic/Curatorial Statement

DÔME DO,WE (a space for rest) is a wooden geodesic dome, an open-structure composed of over 100 triangular modules. Sited under the shade canopy of a majestic Sycamore grove on Eakin’s Oval along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, this ephemeral urban oasis is inspired by Yukihisa Isobe's Air Dome (1970), as a site for art, ideas, and communal experience.

DÔME DO,WE was conceptualized as a transmissive architecture, allowing for air, sound, and light to pass freely through it. Functioning primarily as an organizing framework for placemaking and presentation rather than as a built shelter. It is a matrix of mutually supportive edges, an entity whose strength and durability surpasses that of any individual wooden member. I view this as aspirational, symbolic of the potential of collective ideas and shared social experiences. The visual geometry of the architecture intends to enliven the creative spirit of all those who gather within and around the dome.

The title DÔME DO,WE is a playful pun on the French phrase dôme, d’oui (dome of yes) and reflects its optimistic vision. Drawing contextual parallels to Air Dome, this project resonates with the climate of the late 60s/early 70s—a period marked by dynamic cultural and environmental pressures similar to those we experience today.

The daily programming includes a group mediation each morning, a collective invitation to pause. By aligning our bodies and senses to the rhythm of the surrounding urban Landscape we can ebb and flow in greater harmony.

Leveraging the DNA of the geodesic architectural form we will pay homage to Buckminster Fuller and his semi-utopian concepts. During a participatory workshop and presentation, visitors will have the opportunity to transform a paper print into a scale model of DÔME DO,WE. The open-edition print will be available as a souvenir for all visitors.

My personal interest in field-recorded sound and improvisational composition has led to programming a series of daily sonic activations. The performances aim to acknowledge and harmonize with the ambient soundscape of the site, both on the macro and micro levels.

The programming includes a nighttime video projection event that will animate the dome and surrounding tree canopy, drawing its inspiration from the theme “Undergrowth/Understory.”

The theme of food and its relationship to mental and physical wellness will be the topic of a community discussion and accompanying live broadcast.

Each day visitors will have the opportunity to participate in a group self-portrait image series. Using a wide-angle camera time-lapse capture, participants can pose for a self-portrait within the geodesic architecture. The durational time-lapse is designed to foreground the individual experience against the ever-shifting light and shadow of the site; the visual passage of time.

The creative design and programming of DÔME DO,WE aspires to inspire, offering an opportunity for personal and collective reflection—a space for reset.

Aaron Igler (July 28, 2024)