Random International, “Rain Room,” 2013. Photo: Jonathan Munar of Art21
Random International’s Rain Room has garnered lots of attention since opening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York—and with good reason. This room of rain showers is totally magical. While the woman in our Instagram shot looks stylish with her umbrella, it is not required; built-in sensors detect visitors’ bodies and pause the flow of water just overhead. Rain Room is one element of a larger exposition that’s taking over MoMA PS1 this summer: EXPO 1: New York focuses on the vast environmental, economic, and social transformations resulting from global warming. As much as EXPO 1 looks to the future, like any project on climate change, it is inherently about hindsight and the effect of our actions on the environment. EXPO 1 includes schemes for rebuilding the Rockaways post-Superstorm Sandy, Ansel Adams’s visions of a vanishing wilderness, and actual fragments of a centuries-old glacier that continues to melt away. Rain Room closes July 28, 2013.
—KC Forcier, Development Associate
