Inner Workings

What fires the imagination more – the things you can see or the things you can’t?  Sydney Carpenter's commissioned sculpture Inner Workings tantalizingly suggest that it’s just the tip of the iceberg, with parts buried deep within the Convention Center's concealed space.  The artist found inspiration for this provocative assembly of botanical and body-like clay forms in the hidden systems that control industrial and biological organisms.

A thorny, vine-wrapped branch protrudes from the left, pointing towards a tornado-shaped cascade of watery blue ruffles.  As if fueled by an invisible powerhouse, a plump, bark-textured umbilical cord spirals out of the wall on the right.  It shifts hues from cool to warm as it approaches a curious blossom of collapsing petals.  Some view Inner Workings as an apt metaphor for the Convention Center itself, an entity whose public functions rely on the unseen labors of hundreds of individuals.

Commissioned by the Pennsylvania Convention Center