Look up when you walk into the Tampa Museum of Art and the sky comes indoors. Jacob Hashimoto: This Particle of Dust fills the museum atrium with more than 2,500 handmade kites, suspended from a bespoke armature high above the lobby.
The kites are thousands of transparent and opaque white discs, joined by navy-blue kites patterned with white and cerulean stars. Together they drift like a cloud formation crossed with the night sky, inspired by both weather and the cosmos. Because the atrium is lit by skylights, the installation changes through the day as sunlight moves across it.
Hashimoto, an American artist born in 1973, created This Particle of Dust in 2022 from resin, bamboo, screenprints, paper, acrylic and Dacron. The museum invites visitors to experience it from several levels: from the lobby below, from the stairwell as you climb, and from the second-floor galleries, where the floating field opens up at eye level.
It is a joyful, contemplative welcome to the museum in downtown Tampa, and a reminder that a single artwork can transform the way a whole building feels. The installation is on view now as part of the museum’s current exhibitions.
Photo: Tampa Museum of Art
