Closing Talk: Janet Echelman

Janet Echelman (American, born 1966) creates experiential sculpture at the scale of buildings that transform with wind and light. Her work intersects Fine Art, Architecture, Urban Design, Material Science, Computer Science, and Structural and Aeronautical Engineering. Using unlikely materials from atomized water particles to synthesized fiber fifteen times stronger than steel, Echelman combines ancient craft with original computational design software to create artworks that have become focal points for urban life on five continents.

Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Harvard Loeb Fellowship, Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award, Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellowship, and Fulbright Lectureship, Echelman was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Tufts University and named an Architectural Digest Innovator for “changing the very essence of urban spaces.” Her TED talk “Taking Imagination Seriously” has been translated into 35 languages and viewed by millions.

Her monumental, fluidly-moving aerial sculptures are found worldwide, from London, Madrid, and Amsterdam to Shanghai, Singapore, Santiago, and Sydney. Her permanent commissions include Remembering the Future at the MIT Museum (2025), Butterfly Rest Stop in Frisco, TX (2024), Current in Columbus, OH (2023), Bending Arc at the St. Pete Pier in Florida (2020), Earthtime Korea in South Korea (2020), Dream Catcher (2017) on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, CA, Her Secret Is Patience (2009) in downtown Phoenix, and She Changes (2005) in Porto, Portugal, among others. She currently lives and works in Massachusetts.