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The simple truths of the color wheel are dramatically upscaled in a new installation within the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, Kentucky. Realized by Los Angeles–based office DOMM, it is part of L+A+N+D, a new dedicated area of the Bernheim site that supports large-scale, immersive land art.
Bernheim was founded in 1929 and is fast approaching 100 years of active programming in alignment with a mission to connecting people with nature. The arboretum is unique in its robust focus on art: Each year, artists-in-residence are welcomed to create site-specific work inspired by the forest, and an open call for 2025 residents is now active. But there are also long-term installations throughout the park area, including Forest Giants, Acre, and L+A+N+D (Landscape + Art + Nature + Design). The latter is the newest initiative at Bernheim: It’s a new area of the forest dedicated to immersive installations that visitors can discover.
Currently on view in the L+A+N+D section is Within the Forest: Without the Forest, crafted by DOMM cofounders Raffy Mardirossian and Paul Matevosyan, is an electric-orange artwork that wraps a trio of trees in stacked bands of netting. “When developing this project, we realized that there’s a moment here where you’re leaving the nature you’re in—not physically, but because you’re seeing it through a different lens,” Mardirossian said in a video about the installation. The orange layers act as a monumental filter, or photographer’s gel, that transforms the forest into a room.
The scrim is PVC-coated debris netting, a familiar material for architects. This textile is commonly found in urban construction sites, but it’s hung so intentionally from the studio’s imaginatively assembled rigging equipment that it takes on a partition-like quality. Suspended on aircraft cable and accessible by ducking under the fabric, the “forest room” borrows influence from artists like Christo and Jeanne-Claude and Robert Irwin. “It’s an architectural tool that allows an enhanced and saturated experience to occur,” Matevosyan explained.
Of course, orange is also the opposite of green on the color wheel, ensuring that this wrapping is visible to Bernheim visitors from a distance, which no doubt draws them closer to appreciate its peaceful courtyard. It’s easy to imagine how DOMM’s “room” will change with the seasons, and even throughout the course of a day: The installation was photographed in a dusky light, showcasing how the neon orange cuts through the gloom of a quiet afternoon. But I also imagine how striking the piece will feel in the winter, surrounded either by snow or by a wholly different color palette off which to play.