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100 Colors

Architect Emmanuelle Moureaux creates sculptures using a rainbow of paper and fabrics

September 4, 2017
By Jennifer Hackett

An explosion of numbers and colors greeted visitors who walked into a gymnasium-sized gallery at the National Art Center Tokyo in Japan last January. But the strings of 60,000 floating digits that made up the installation were actually carefully arranged in rows. 

A tunnel sliced through the middle of the numbers. From there, a viewer could see the colors shift from sunshine yellow to a rich purple-pink. The numbers were so densely packed that a person could barely see someone standing inside the tunnel from the outside!

“In everyday life, we are surrounded by numbers. Everything is created by numbers,” says Emmanuelle Moureaux, the French architect who made the work of art. Forest of Numbers, as the installation is called, is the most recent in her 100 colors series of installations.  

Bright colors and numbers greeted visitors to the National Art Center Tokyo in Japan last January. The gymnasium-sized gallery appeared to be full of jumbled numbers. But the strings of 60,000 floating digits that made up the installation were actually carefully arranged in rows.

A tunnel sliced through the middle of the numbers. From there, a viewer could see the colors shift from sunshine yellow to a rich purple-pink. The numbers were so densely packed that a person could barely see someone standing inside the tunnel from the outside!

"In everyday life, we are surrounded by numbers. Everything is created by numbers," says Emmanuelle Moureaux. She’s a French architect who made the work of art. It’s an installation called Forest of Numbers. Moureaux has been making a series of installations called 100 colors. This is the most recent in her series of installations.

Courtesy, Emmanuelle Moureaux

“I decided to use colors as three-dimensional elements, like layers, in order to create spaces, not as a finishing touch applied to surfaces.”

Moureaux started 100 colors in 2013 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the opening of her studio in Tokyo. The bright, overlapping lights, shapes, and layers of the city inspired Moureaux to use colors to create spaces. Moureaux wants to show how color can fill a space instead of just being used as a highlight or accent.  

For the works in the series, Moureaux uses thousands of small paper cutouts of people, flowers that spin like pinwheels, or even simple strips of paper or fabric. She’s completed 18 different installations so far and plans to create a total of 100 installations in cities around the world over the next few years. 

Each installation requires careful planning. Moureaux needs to make sure all the pieces line up, are neatly sorted by color, and properly fill the space. Everything—from the time it takes to make a single piece of an installation to how many pieces will be needed in total—is calculated in advance. For example, it took 300 volunteers 10 days to install Forest of Numbers.

That hard work pays off in the end. “Designing with 100 colors makes me happy,” Moureaux says. “I hope 100 colors makes other people happy too.”

Moureaux started 100 colors in 2013. The project celebrates the 10th anniversary of her studio in Tokyo. The city’s bright, overlapping lights, shapes, and layers inspired Moureaux to use colors to create spaces. Moureaux wants to show how color can fill a space. Usually colors are just used as a highlight or accent.

Each work in the series is made up of many small parts. Moureaux uses thousands of small paper cutouts of people, flowers that spin like pinwheels, and even simple strips of paper or fabric. She's completed 18 different installations so far. She plans to create a total of 100 installations in cities around the world over the next few years.

Each installation requires careful planning. Moureaux needs to make sure all the pieces line up, are neatly sorted by color, and properly fill the space. Everything is calculated in advance, like the time it takes to make a single piece of an installation and how many pieces will be needed in total. For example, it took 300 volunteers 10 days to install Forest of Numbers.

That hard work pays off in the end. "Designing with 100 colors makes me happy," Moureaux says. "I hope 100 colors makes other people happy too."

MULTIPLYING WITH FRACTIONS

When multiplying fractions and mixed numbers, all the numbers in your expression must be fractions or improper fractions. Then you can multiply numerators and denominators separately.

MULTIPLYING WITH FRACTIONS

When multiplying fractions and mixed numbers, all the numbers in your expression must be fractions or improper fractions. Then you can multiply numerators and denominators separately.

Multiply fractions to learn more about the 100 colors installations by Emmanuelle Moureaux. Write all answers in simplest form. Record your work and answers on our answer sheet.

Multiply fractions to learn more about the 100 colors installations by Emmanuelle Moureaux. Write all answers in simplest form. Record your work and answers on our answer sheet.

Moureaux has created 18 different 100 colors installations. Of those, 1/3 use uniquely shaped pieces of paper instead of sheets or strips. How many use unique shapes? 

Moureaux has created 18 different 100 colors installations. Of those, 1/3 use uniquely shaped pieces of paper instead of sheets or strips. How many use unique shapes?

Forest of Numbers has 60,000 individual numbers from 0 to 9. If there were an equal number of each digit, 1/2 of the numbers would be even. How many numbers is that?

Forest of Numbers has 60,000 individual numbers from 0 to 9. If there were an equal number of each digit, 1/2 of the numbers would be even. How many numbers is that?

Of the 18 different 100 colors installations, 8/9 have been displayed in Tokyo, and 1/6 have been shown in North or South America. How many more installations have been exhibited in Japan than in North or South America? 

Of the 18 different 100 colors installations, 8/9 have been displayed in Tokyo, and 1/6 have been shown in North or South America. How many more installations have been exhibited in Japan than in North or South America?

The installation color mixing has 25,200 pinwheel-shaped pieces that spin in a series of vertical cylinders. One vertical cylinder uses 1/ 35 of the pieces. The installation I am here has 18,000 female silhouettes in horizontal rows of colors arranged in a prism. Each row of color in I am here uses 1/20 of the pieces. Which installation has more pieces per section?

The installation color mixing has 25,200 pinwheel-shaped pieces that spin in a series of vertical cylinders. One vertical cylinder uses 1/ 35 of the pieces. The installation I am here has 18,000 female silhouettes in horizontal rows of colors arranged in a prism. Each row of color in I am here uses 1/20 of the pieces. Which installation has more pieces per section?

The smallest installation that Moureaux has made in the series is called 100 colors in 3.3 m2 and covers an area of only 3 3/10 square meters. The largest she has made so far, Forest of Numbers, covers 606 3/50 times that area. What area does Forest of Numbers cover, rounded to the nearest whole number?

The smallest installation that Moureaux has made in the series is called 100 colors in 3.3 m2 and covers an area of only 3 3/10 square meters. The largest she has made so far, Forest of Numbers, covers 606 3/50 times that area. What area does Forest of Numbers cover, rounded to the nearest whole number?

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