The Western Gallery at Western Washington University will officially unveil a new addition to its world-class public art collection, Space Poem #15 (To the Remembered Earth) by artist Renée Green, on October 2.

Space Poem #15 (To the Remembered Earth) is part of an extended body of work by Renée Green. In talking about her Space Poems, the artist said, “Space Poems are open-ended and capacious. In them, it’s possible for me to retrieve many things. Existing in a variety of spaces, Space Poems allow room for combining fragments of encounters of diverse kinds.” Suspended colorful banners feature powerful texts in Green’s Space Poems. As viewers move through the rooms animated by the suspended artwork, they respond to the vivid environment and find meaning in the compelling poetry of the words. Green is celebrated for her multi-media installations in which ideas, perception, and memory combine and reflect a myriad experiences both past and present.

Three locations across the WWU campus feature distinct installations of Green’s Space Poem No. 15 (To the Remembered Earth). Suspended banners appear in the skybridge between the Academic Instructional Center East and West. Double-sided panels are suspended in the lobby windows of WWU’s Interdisciplinary Science Building. Windows of the Western Gallery entry foyer in the Fine Arts Building are the third location for this artwork. Although the artworks are all indoors, importantly they are very visible outdoors too. Green said, “These sites were chosen to create a meandering path among specific works in the current Campus Sculpture Collection that resonate with my intellectual and aesthetic interests and trajectory.”

The Washington Arts Commission, in partnership with Western Washington University, commissioned the artwork. Funding was provided by the Percent-for-Art Program of the state of Washington and with capital funds affiliated with the newly completed Kaiser Borsari building on the WWU campus.