Internationally recognized artist, Steven Siegel, constructs site-specific works using materials that most people consider to be trash. The results are enormous, organically shaped forms produced from stacked and compressed materials. Placed in spaces accessible to the public, these sculptures are designed to decompose and evolve over time, requiring multiple visits to the site on which they are constructed. The artworks are Siegel’s personal exploration into geological time and into the “large accumulations of small things” that compose our universe.

In November of 2003, Siegel visited the University of Florida in Gainesville. Together with over 150 students, faculty, UF employees and Gainesville residents, he built Pod, in the courtyard of the School of Art and Art History.

Installation took seven days and involved creating 16 trusses that were assembled into a large armature onto which 30 truckloads of local, organic material such as palm fronds, resurrection ferns and Spanish moss were placed. Some of the materials used in Pod will decompose while others may root and grow. In order to allow this evolution to occur, the sculpture will remain at the university until the summer of 2004.