If you live in Europe and recently saw a lush green island floating by in the sky, don’t worry – you haven’t lost your mind. A team of U.K. artists and designers have lost something very important to them, though: this mesmerizing floating structure called Is Land.
(all images via: Is Land)
At the Secret Garden Party festival in Cambridgeshire in July, a group of vandals cut the support ropes tethering Is Land to the ground. The helium-filled floating island sailed away on the wind, carrying with it months of hard work on the part of artist Sarah Cockings, designer Laurence Symonds and a whole team of other contributors.
Is Land, a lushly vegetated artificial island in the sky, is a sculpture that reminds us all how close and how far away our perfect worlds are. It floats above the heads of onlookers, tantalizing them with glimpses of a lovely but ever-unreachable landscape.
Sadly, the few malicious festival-goers who decided to set Is Land aloft nearly deprived an American audience of this beautiful sculpture. It was due to make its first American appearance at Burning Man 2011 shortly after the Secret Garden Party. Thanks to the generosity of the Secret Garden Party fund, the Is Land creators have been able to start work on a new version of the piece that will be presented at Burning Man.
The team is still on the hunt for the original, however. Due to the time and money invested in Is Land, it would be a shame for this beautiful piece of art to disappear forever. According to wind patterns, the helium-filled sculpture should have touched down somewhere in the Czech Republic. Anyone who has seen Is Land or has information on its whereabouts can contact the designers through their website.

