Google Earth users thought it was the work of aliens. Some even ventured to guess that it was a gateway to a parallel universe. Otherwise, how had these gigantic sand spirals gotten there? As theories began to spread into a collective viral research, an amazing extra-large piece of art was rediscovered –17 years after it was built.
Stretching over one million square feet of sand in the Sahara Desert, the mysterious spirals are part of an installation created by a collective of artists and architects called D.A.S.T Arteam.
Formed by conical volumes both negative and positive, the spirals converge into a water pond –a symbolic eye towards the universal, according to the artists. “We were addressing the desert as a state of mind, a landscape of the mind”, says artist Danae Stratou.
Located in Egypt’s El Gouna, an area that stretches just between the Red Sea and a body of mountains in the Sahara Desert, the work has deteriorated with the passage of of time, which has completely dried up the pond. “It has developed a more organic relationship with the site. It looks like it wasn’t made by human beings at all, and this is something we like a lot”, Stratou told CNN.
For more info – “Desert Breath” | Land Art Installation | By D.A.ST. Arteam, Egypt (1997) from Danae Stratou on Vimeo.
