Irish Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef - 3 days to go

The Irish Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is on display for only three more days at The Greenhouse/Cultivate/Eco-UNESCO, 17 St. Andrews Street, Dublin 2. This "woolly wonder" exhibition combines crafts with mathematics, marine ecology, community arts and the state of the world's coral reefs, in an accessible, beautiful and engagingly tactile way. The Irish Reef will be open late this Friday 23rd September for Culture Night, which will also mark the end of the exhibition in its current location.


Hyperbolic crochet was initiated by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina to model hyperbolic geometry. The Irish Reef is a satellite of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project created by Margaret and Christine Wertheim of the Institute of Figuring in Los Angeles. Their collectively worked crochet reef installations, alongside the "people's reefs" they've inspired in many countries, have toured the world raising awareness about coral reefs, the geometry of hyperbolic space, plastic rubbish in the oceans and ocean acidification. The community-created Irish Reef was established under the auspices of Science Gallery in 2010.


There are more of my photos of the Irish and international reefs from 2010, including the toxic reef, White Spire Grove, plastic corals, the Maths Chapel, the bleached bone reef and the Ladies Silurian Atoll. You can dive deeper in my previous blog post about the meaning of hyperbolic geometry, the extensive exhibition at Science Gallery last year, a lecture in Dublin by Professor Taimina (which featured hyperbolic pants) and my own experiences experimenting with crochet after a gap of 20 years.


Irish Reef blog at irishhyperboliccrochetcoralreef.wordpress.com
Photos of the 2010 exhibition
Photos of the 2011 exhibition
Blog post on 2010 reefs, hyperbolic space and Daina Taimina

Update 26/09/11: The Reefers have told me the Irish reef will be now be in situ and on display at The Greenhouse for a while longer yet, past its scheduled end date of 23rd September, so drop by and see it between the hours of 9.30a.m. and 5p.m. Monday to Friday.