Poem by Seamus Heaney, texts by Parveen Adams and Ivan Gaskell, edited by Ivan Gaskell

64 pages, 7 7/8 x 11 3/4", 29 illustrations, 28 in color. 1997

ISBN 0-916724-94-8 (paper) $17.95

Canopy-a temporary public artwork created by British artist David Ward-was installed in Harvard Yard in May 1994. Thirty separate sound sources hung from the trees in the Yard, each playing the recorded voices of readers speaking in various languages. The voices told stories about place, including a selection from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, along with personal memories, poems, and folk tales. The work occurred each evening between dusk and darkness for a two-week period. As natural light fell, white light, cast horizontally from the tops of flanking buildings, gradually took over from the setting sun, catching the leaves of the trees. The work's magical effects were praised by the Boston Globe, which listed it as the year's best art exhibition.

The book consists of a series of responses to the work, from the poetical to the theoretical, reflecting the range of deep thought provoked by the experience of Canopy itself, whether that thought was emotional or theoretical.

This project evolved from an artist's residency organized and sponsored by five organizations within Harvard University: the Harvard University Art Museums, the Office for the Arts at Harvard and Radcliffe, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, and the Graduate School of Design. Copublished with the Office for the Arts at Harvard and Radcliffe.