OASIS: Come to Life is a collaborative and interactive installation by Emma Strebel and Kate Weigel. The immersive piece creates an intimate environment where color, light and time intersect. The viewer enters through different layers of the room while experiencing the sun either rising or setting. In the center of OASIS, viewers are presented with a slab of stone beneath rippling shadows. Visitors are encouraged to sit by the stone and crush piles of shells adding to a heap that changes over the course of the exhibition.

Each visit to the gallery becomes a distinct experience as the sun cycles and the sand collects. The installation acts as a prism that refracts the elements of time through the space. Each element: sand, water, pounding of the rocks, curtains of fabric and the rising and setting of the sun, is made up of smaller moments that layer together to create a whole. Each visitor becomes a moment in the accumulation of the work.

Kate Weigel and Emma Strebel are Visual Art Global Academic Fellows at NYU Abu Dhabi for the 2015-2016 academic year. Kate is a performance artist and sculptor originally from Maine, USA. Her work deals with futility, technology and human connection. Emma, a San Francisco native, works primarily with ideas surrounding transience using natural materials such as light and ice. More about the artists at their websites: emmastrebel.com and kateweigel.com kateweigel.com