The Third Space
Art4Trails | Rochester Art Center | Mayo Park, Rochester, Minnesota | 2026
Presence creates connection. Connection creates nurture. Nurture builds resilience.
Created as part of Rochester Art Center's Art4Trails program, The Third Space is an immersive, site-specific installation that explores the relationship between presence, connection, nurturing, and resilience. Suspended between living trees, fallen branches wrapped in natural wool form a canopy of wind-activated chimes, inviting visitors to slow down, listen, and connect with themselves, one another, and the surrounding landscape.
At its heart, The Third Space is an invitation to simply be present. To pause, to listen, and to recognize that connection creates opportunities for care, and care builds resilience.
The work was inspired by an earlier installation Olivia created during an artist residency on Scotland's Isle of Skye. Following a powerful storm, she gathered a fallen branch and suspended it between two standing trees, wrapping it in wool gifted by a local farmer and incorporating chimes that responded to the wind. What began as a spontaneous experiment in the landscape became a meditation on transformation, belonging, and the possibility of finding beauty in what has fallen.
Each element of The Third Space carries symbolic meaning. The fallen branches represent loss and change, while their new placement among living trees suggests resilience and the possibility of being supported through life's transitions. The wool symbolizes nurturing and care, the chimes represent connection, and the wind embodies the constant presence of change. The surrounding landscape offers a sense of belonging, holding these elements together in a shared space.
Building upon Olivia's earlier explorations of grief through her installation In Loving and Loss, The Third Space shifts its focus toward what sustains us through difficult seasons. Rooted in her community-centered artistic practice, the installation offers a gentle reminder that while loss and change are inevitable parts of the human experience, we have the capacity to hold space for one another. At different moments in life, we may find ourselves fallen, or we may be the ones offering support.
