Canadian design firm NÓS has created Moving Dunes, a large mural for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts that covers Avenue du Musée in Montreal. The painted street seems to swell into ripples, an effect designed to recall the features of a body or a face. The studio is at n-o-s.ca.
A street that seems to move
Bands of colour run along the avenue and bend into dune-like waves. The flat road surface appears to rise and sink, so walking along it becomes a small optical game.
Mirrored spheres and shifting views
Reflective spheres and geometric shapes are placed across the mural. They amplify its patterns and multiply the viewpoints. As people move around, the street changes: shapes flip, and the ground seems to come alive and lose its stability.
Reflecting the museum
The spheres also mirror the different buildings of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, each with its own architecture and history. In this way the mural ties the street to the institution that lines it, and brings real and virtual space together.
A playground for passers-by
The installation invites people to explore it on foot. Children run across the waves, visitors stop to look at their reflections, and the painted lines read differently from every angle.
Project credits
- Project: Moving Dunes, Avenue du Musée, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal
- Design: NÓS
- Designers: Charles Laurence Proulx, Gil Hardy, Negar Adibpour, Jean-Benoit Trudelle
- Project manager: Charles Laurence Proulx
- Collaborators: MU
- Photography: Olivier Bousquet, Eloa Defly, Raphaël Thibodeau, Alex Lesage, Charles Laurence Proulx
- Source: Contemporist