Earlier this summer, MOCA Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles was transformed into a multi-dimensional interactive sculpture by artist Jacob Hashimoto, with thousands of colorful paper kites suspended throughout the interior volumes.

A unique spatial experience encompassing the entire gallery, the installation follows a literal and conceptual progression. At the ground floor, a series of tangled black and white kites hangs adjacent to a formal grid of circular and square kites.

On the first floor, a big part of the struggle was to subvert that grid, to destroy it, tangle it up, and mess with it in ways that made Gas Giant more in conflict with the architecture to create a more interesting context for the work when the work is't perfectly in line with the sensibility of the architecture. That is why we see this kind of violence on the ground floor. JH

Progressing up the stair, thousands of billowing white 'clouds' soar upwards into the expansive, light-filled main interior gallery volume above.

Because the space is so vertical on the second floor, it lends itself to being hugely atmospheric. There is this very open, clean poetics, this big space that you want to feel big, because you can actually put artwork in all the different nooks and crannies of the space. We can draw the viewer's attention to the size and emphasize the verticality of the space, which a lot of pieces that have worked [previously] in the space have played with, but I think the way that this piece functions will frame it in a way that we have not seen before. JH

Pieces like Gas Giant really try to capture the sense of awe that we get when we walk into these kinds of large, sacred spaces, but also the way that you move through those spaces when they create narratives and their sense of purpose is built into the architecture.' jacob hashimoto

The effect of the paper kites suspended from above and lit by the skylight beyond, while difficult to capture in two-dimensional images, is a truly stunning visual exploration of space, materiality and light...

Learn about Hashimoto's process, influences , and read an interview with the artist at MOCA's site. View a timelapse of the installation below and find more images of various works at his website.

Jacob Hashimoto is an artist whose work studies visual experience in space, artifice, and craft through the use of materials such as handmade kites, fiberglass, marble and the skillful use of light.

Minimalism + Poetics : 30,000 Suspended Paper Kites at MOCA