Shared Air

- by Kate Dodd

2021

plastic strapping

Titled Shared Air, this outdoor installation draws attention to the critical role trees play as “the lungs of the world.” At a time when being able to breathe is on many people’s minds, these pairs of lacy lung-shaped silhouettes, interspersed among the trees behind Overlook Hospital, remind us how essential both medicine and the environment are to our survival.

Located along the Summit Park Line, Shared Air is SPA’s second collaboration with the Summit Park Line Foundation and is dedicated in honor of Overlook President Alan Lieber and to all the Atlantic Health System healthcare professionals who valiantly battled the pandemic.

A graduate of New York’s Pratt Institute and a recent recipient of a NJ Fellowship for Sculpture, Kate Dodd has exhibited her artwork widely throughout New Jersey and in New York and California. Dodd frequently works with repurposed materials, using everything from discarded books to Styrofoam cups to create installations for a variety of venues, from museums and parks to schools and train stations.

“A certain amount of my artwork,” says Dodd, “responds to the question: What is there a lot of in the world that people don’t value? What can I do to give these materials value? A central part of art-making to me is turning nothing into something or turning raw materials into objects. And part of what making satisfies for me is the need to bring order to chaos. It doesn’t make sense to me to make new objects when the world is already so full of objects. And almost nothing seems as ever present and unwanted as plastic bottles.”