Ariadne's Labyrinth

Last year I was approached by Winter Williams Productions to create a labyrinth in their backyard. Using materials found in the neighborhood by the Oakland Hills, like bricks and slabs of different shapes,  we worked over the course of 6 days flattening the yard, arranging the bricks, painting them and filling the gaps with decomposed granite.

Ariadne, in Greek mythology, daughter of Pasiphae and the Cretan king Minos. She fell in love with the Athenian hero Theseus and, with a thread helped him escape the Labyrinth after he slew the Minotaur, a beast half bull and half man that Minos kept in the Labyrinth.

But since labyrinths are unicursal paths and no-one can get lost in them, Ariadne’s thread would seem useless. But if we think metaphorically the story has a different meaning. Ariadne could be offering Theseus the challenge to enter the labyrinth and face his own fears.  The thread is the path or journey through the labyrinth, in fact it’s an actual labyrinth itself.

With these ideas I decided to design a labyrinth in the shape of the thread that follows the path of the Cretan Classical 7 Circuit Labyrinth, also known as Minoan Labyrinth. To learn more about this project watch the video below:

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