Artist Christo Realizes Decades-Long Dream With 'The Floating Piers'

Published December 27, 2016 at 12:20 PM CST

This year, the artist Christo ( @xtojc_tweet) was finally able to present “ The Floating Piers,” an ambitious project he and his wife and artistic partner the late Jeanne-Claude had begun to envision after completing “The Wrapped Coast” in Australia in 1969.

“ The Floating Piers,” was a walkway covered in yellow-orange fabric that stretched almost two miles into Lake Iseo in northern Italy, connecting two islands with the mainland. The project was open to the public for just 16 days, from June 18 to July 3, and then was dismantled and recycled.

We revisit a conversation Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson had with Christo about “The Floating Piers” from June.

“All the journey is the work of art,” Christo said. “And the most beautiful part of the floating pier is to see the entire project is about the people walking nowhere. About the feeling of the surface of the land or the water. And your feet actually, many people walk barefoot. And they walk, they walk. It’s not like going to shop, not going to see your friends. It’s going really nowhere.”