2026

Three painted bronze sculptures, living plinths planted with fragrant thyme.

Canalside Park, Oxford, UK.

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Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, The Length of a Moment II, 2026. Painted bronze and fragrant thyme. Photograph: Thierry Bal.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, The Length of a Moment I, 2026. Painted bronze and fragrant thyme. Photograph: Thierry Bal.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, The Length of a Moment III, 2026. Painted bronze and fragrant thyme. Photograph: Thierry Bal.

Artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg with The Length of a Moment II, 2026. Painted bronze and fragrant thyme. Photograph: Thierry Bal.

The Length of a Moment gives sculptural form to the smell of a flower shaped by the flight of a moth. The permanent public artwork comprises three painted bronze sculptures, installed in the wildflower meadow in the new Canalside Park, Oxford North. Each rises from a meandering living plinth planted with fragrant thyme.

For many insects, smell helps organise the landscape. Flowers release smell molecules that drift and disperse through the air, forming odour plumes shaped by airflow, surrounding vegetation and the movement of insects through them. Moths, like many insect pollinators, follow these shifting trails towards a flower’s nectar. 

Ginsberg developed the sculptures using digital simulations of smell plumes disturbed by a moth’s flight. From these simulations, she selected three individual moments and transformed them into physical volumes. Cast in bronze and painted in tones of lilac, mint green and pale dove blue, the cloud-like forms hold movements that would ordinarily disappear into the air. The work marks Ginsberg’s first use of sculpture and bronze.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, The Length of a Moment I, 2026 (studio detail). Painted bronze. Photograph: Steve Russell Studios.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, The Length of a Moment II, 2026 (studio detail). Painted bronze. Photograph: Steve Russell Studios.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, The Length of a Moment III, 2026 (studio detail). Painted bronze. Photograph: Steve Russell Studios.

The sculptures also refer to Chinese scholars’ rocks: objects whose forms evoke mountains and imagined landscapes. Traditionally placed on a scholar’s desk or within a garden, these rocks offer a microcosm through which to contemplate nature’s dynamism. In The Length of a Moment, a fleeting sensory exchange is similarly held still for attention.

By making a moth’s sensory experience physically present, The Length of a Moment uses simulation to explore another creature’s experience. Embedded among the plants and insects to which it refers, the work invites visitors to pause within a landscape structured by signals imperceptible to humans.

To mark the unveiling of The Length of a Moment at Oxford North on 15 September 2026, Ginsberg joined writer Philip Ball in conversation to explore the ideas behind the work and the development of the sculptures. Watch the full conversation below.