Installation artist Sarah Bierman at Brandeis University

By Shani Abramowitz

WALTHAM, MA — The first of a two-part installation and a component of her senior honors thesis in Studio Art, Sarah Bierman is making sure we can all take a seat.

Thanks to Bierman, the Brandeis University campus is now peppered with couches and chairs that seem to be growing out of the trees. Searching for a natural and effortless look, Bierman reconstructed the found objects in ways that complemented their environment, “I wanted to place a couch that looked like it had been growing between two tress,” Bierman said, “ you had planted the couch and it kind of grew around the them.”

A site-specific project, Bierman’s installation demonstrates how seamlessly found objects can be integrated in the natural environment. So far, Bierman has installed two couches and two chairs around the Brandeis campus, but says that we can expect at least two more in the coming months.

Bierman used couches and chairs that she had found to complete the installation, saying that, “the couch just really worked well with the nature of the installation.”

She draws inspiration from two artists in particular, Cornelia Konrads and Allan Wexler, who are known for their innovative work with objects and space. “Konrads,” Bierman said, “gives me a new way to look at and work with space.”

The Fulbright finalist has also worked in more conventional artistic spaces, doing work that harkens back to her love of site-specific installation. Bierman spent the last two summers in Poland, with Handshouse Studio, a nonprofit studio based in Norwell, Mass., replicating Hebrew calligraphy in a wooden synagogue destroyed in World War II.

Last year, for a studio art class, Bierman put her love for bunnies to work and installed nearly 100 live-like wooden rabbits on the Brandeis Campus.

Bierman studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, from January thru June 2013 during her semester abroad, and is a finalist for the Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research in Poland.

Check out Sarah’s work here: www.sarahbierman.weebly.com