Yesterday, I attended an installation meeting at SFO with the Mosaika installation team, SFO team members, security officials, members of the architectural team and construction crew, and representatives from the San Francisco Arts Commission. We crammed ourselves into a small conference room to discuss the logistics for the installation of Untitled (Large Variation) in Terminal 3. Since the mural will be installed in a "sterile" (post-security) area, we must coordinate with SFO security to make sure that we are in compliance with all rules regarding personnel, tools and installation protocol. It's complicated.
The team from Mosaika has been here for a week, working on a project at SF General Hospital. I visited Mosaika at their studio in Montreal twice during the fabrication of the SFO mural, but met the installation team for the first time yesterday. They are absolute professionals and, unlike me, they were unfazed by the avalanche of airport information, rules and protocols regarding security checks, airport badging and the like. I confess I felt a tad overwhelmed at how complex a project it will be to bring in personnel, tools, equipment and the mosaic itself, which waits in 3 crates, each weighing around 1200 pounds.
We will begin installation as soon as Mosaika is finished at SF General, most likely on June 8th. It has been nearly five years since the SFAC commissioned the piece, and it's almost hard to believe that this is really happening. I look forward to sharing more once we begin.
The team surveys the area in Terminal 3 where we will install the mural.