The artwork “Wavelength” was commissioned by the Broward County Cultural Division in partnership with the Broward County Aviation Department and Southwest Airlines for the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The intent of the project was to provide a beautiful, welcoming experience for airport visitors. The artist, Emily White, collaborated extensively with the building’s architects, engineers and designers to create a seamlessly integrated artwork that is an awe-inspiring feature of the ellipse area. The ellipse area is a high-ceiling open space at the intersection of the connector and the concourse in Terminal 1 designed to provide a resting place for travelers awaiting their flights. The site allows passengers to slow down and contemplate the artwork above. The lighting in the space makes the artwork dynamic and ever-changing.

“Wavelength,” a suspended aluminum sculpture, is a site-specific artwork inspired by the way light transforms into color when it refracts through water. In researching the project, the artist, Emily White, looked at the processes of painters JMW Turner and Richard Diebenkorn, each of whom made an analysis of particular behaviors of light on water specific to the locations in which they were working. “This project addresses the specificity of place. Air travel can be a disorienting experience, full of places that are simultaneously generic and unfamiliar. ‘Wavelength’ represents the hues of water and light specific to Fort Lauderdale, isolated as bands in a spectrum and expressed as a suspended volume above the concourse ellipse area. Through this artwork, I seek to humanize the experience of air travel by conveying to passengers a specific sense of place.” Emily White