Wingspan: A Wearable Sanctuary
Robin Lasser, Adrienne Pao, and Sasha Vermel
Aerial video of installation performance at the Montalvo Arts Center
Situated within a garden inhabited by native plantings, Wingspan: A Wearable Sanctuary merges body, bird, architecture, and landscape in a temporary hybrid form. Drawing from the historic arches of Villa Montalvo, the Dress Tent translates the estate’s architectural language into a winged, inhabitable structure that extends built space into living habitat–serving as a threshold between estate and ecology.
Migration and adaptation are natural conditions of survival: birds traverse territories, plants reseed and root, and architectural forms travel across time and geography. Visitors activate the work by setting a wooden bench swing in motion, triggering a layered soundscape of endangered and thriving California bird calls interwoven with human voice and an original cello composition. The surrounding native plantings echo the installation’s color and reinforce its field of resonance.
In a moment of ecological precarity, joy becomes a form of resistance. What is vanishing does not fall silent. Through embodied participation, human movement amplifies what remains. The Garden Dress Tent becomes a resonant aviary, where vitality and vulnerability exist in charged balance.
The Edible Garden Dress Tent was originally installed in 2012 at the Montalvo Arts Center. It was de-installed three years later. On May 1st, 2026 the dress tent is brought back to life as part of the Art of Fashion Botanicals event.
The dress tent is activated by dancer /choreographer Lauren Baines. Kelly Sicat, Director at the Montalvo Arts Center, curated and commissioned the piece. In June, 2026 the original installation created by Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao transforms into a new dress tent titled Wingspan: A Wearable Sanctuary - installed in a newly planted native garden where the gardener becomes a bird with a 30 foot wing span.
The Making of Wingspan
Native garden created to surround the Wingspan: A Wearable Sanctuary dress tent. This garden will be filled with plantings that attract pollinators and the natural colors mirror the colors utilized in the dress tent fabric design, creating an ecosystem of vibrant life that supports the spirit of the installation.
The ‘Garden Gregorian Chant’ is a soundscape, the lyrics are the Latin names of the native plants growing in the garden. The sound will be heard inside the dress tent, activated by visitors utilizing the wooden bench swing in the dress tent interior.
Below are additional soundtracks that also can be heard inside the dress tent.
Wing and dress design for the dress tent installation
Credits
Dress fabrication and co-design: Sasha Vermel
Dress rigging: Christopher Horvath
Sewing: F.R. McNeil, Lara Mattson, Nat Stockmann
Steel fabrication and co-design: Anthony Texiera
Arduino fabrication and coding: Xiao Wu
Original cello composition: Gustavo Lorenzetti
Sound Engineering: Albert (Camacho) Cagliero
Original song compositions: Robin Lasser
Performers: Sophie Lastra, Sasha Vermel, Maija Fletcher
Curated by: Kelly Sicat and Judy Dennis
Curatorial intern: Angela Chan
Garden design and stewardship: Mari Jozaki, Sam Long
Montalvo facility manager: Lonnie Cedillo
Drone footage: Gary Craig Hobbs
Pinewood High School volunteers: Will Hewlett, Yichen Wang, Wardin Schluchter, Joanna Zhao, Arya Agarwal, Daish Dwarak, Jack Giannasi, Nick Li, Katie Maier, Thea Perry, Shruthi Sathyanarayanan, Nathan Birman, Aldan Goel, Claire Wu