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Artist outlines Botanical Canopy Project as modular shade response to urban heat
Summary
Baez Okeidus, a sculptor living in Tempe, described the Botanical Canopy Project: a modular public-art shade structure of 60 overlapping "leaves" meant to provide mesquite-like shade, encourage local fabrication, and draw attention to water conservation in Phoenix-area neighborhoods. Timeline and funding were not specified.
Baez Okeidus, a sculptor living and working in Tempe, Arizona, described the Botanical Canopy Project, a modular public-art shade system intended to help address the urban heat island effect in Phoenix-area neighborhoods.
Okeidus said the project grows from a bridge motif: "The Covered Bridge is very much a symbolic thing of Appalachia," she said, and that reference provided a compositional starting point. "There are 60 leaves on the whole project which do overlap each other so we're gonna create this a shade that is closer to hopefully the shade of a mesquite tree," she said.
The artist emphasized modularity and community participation. She said individual leaves are sized so "a single person could weave the whole thing" and experience "the sense of accomplishment of having accomplished this one component." The design, she said, allows the hub shape to be changed and shade to be placed "in more specific ways."
Okeidus framed the project as an alternative to commercial shade structures and as an invitation to local action. "What I'm hoping that this project does is it gives an alternative to a commercially produced shade structure and so the hope is to inspire individuals to be able to take sort of agency around this idea for themselves," she said.
She also tied the artwork to environmental themes and to local water stewardship. Citing family influence, Okeidus said her mother ran an organization called Project Underground that focused on groundwater education. "Since moving to the desert actually, most of our work has water as a as a common sort of denominator," she said, adding that the artwork is meant to "draw greater attention and have greater involvement from from the whole community" on water-use issues.
Details including project timeline, permitting, specific installation sites, and funding sources were not specified in the remarks.
The presentation focused on design, community craft participation, and environmental education rather than formal approvals or budget items.
