#surrounded islands

Surrounded Islands • Christo and Jeanne-Claude;

1982 • Drawing, postcard, flyers.

Surrounded Islands • Christo and Jeanne-Claude;

May 1983 • Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida.

Born on the same day in 1935, it seems as though Christo and Jeanne-Claude were a pair written in the stars. What people often forget about this iconic artist couple is that Christo actually had a thing for Jeanne-Claude’s sister and Jeanne-Claude was engaged to some other guy at the time of their first meeting. Jeanne-Claude still married the poor guy and left him shortly after because she fell in love with Christo and became pregnant with his child. 

In 1983, they completed one of my favourite projects of theirs—Surrounded Islands. Eleven islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay were encircled with 6.5 million square feet of floating pink polypropylene material. While the artists’ intentions for Surrounded Islands contained no deeper meaning than its immediate aesthetic impact, its ephemeral composition of pink, blue, green, and turquoise has always made me think about what it feels like to be loved. Because love to me is this all-encompassing presence that wraps me up and holds me. And much like the way the pink wraps the islands or the way the bay envelops the pink, there is a joy, beauty, and a new way of seeing the familiar whenever I experience this piece. Surrounded Islands teaches me to be the love I want to receive. 

“We tell them that we believe it will be beautiful because that is our specialty, we only create joy and beauty. We have never done a sad work. Through the drawings, we hope a majority will be able to visualize it.” -Christo