LA-based art collective Poetic Kinetics is back at Coachella this year giving festivalgoers another exciting art installation to ogle over. Last year they were behind the giant kinetic astronaut sculpture. For the first two days of this year's festival, a huge yellow and black caterpillar roamed the grounds, providing shade to those who drew near. On Sunday morning, the caterpillar sculpture was gone and a beautiful blue butterfly emerged whose rainbow wings could actually flap. Members of the crowd could help move the butterfly around by carrying its legs. Because it's made of multi-colored sequins, the butterfly's legs could be rubbed downwards to turn blue and rubbed upward to turn black.
Called Caterpillar's Longing, or Papilio Merraculous, the work was inspired by all the amazing ways nature handles change and transformation. “The world around us is always adapting, evolving, and growing in often mysterious ways,” the group explains. “We celebrate that change.”
The installation was created to help bring awareness to the declining monarch butterfly population. Every year 1.5 million acres of monarch habitat are destroyed, which is equal to the size of Coachella's polo field times 7,500. The public is encouraged to help by planting milkweed and nectar plants in their gardens and advocating for monarch and pollinator conservation.
Poetic Kinetics website
First photo credit: Ashton Morgan, Watchara Phomicinda/ San Gabriel Valley Tribune],
Photos: Coachella
