In Jen Bervin’s large-scale installation River, a hand-sewn model of the Mississippi River in silver sequins, you see the river reversed, mapped from the geocentric perspective— from inside the earth’s interior looking up at the riverbed. The scale is one inch to one mile. It took twelve years to make, and the same amount of time to sew each section of river that it would to walk the real one. The artist sewed the 230 curvilinear feet long sculpture by hand, including each of the thousands of reflective, silver sequins that densely cover the surface. The archipelagoes of the delta, south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico, are mirrored. Wherever the piece is exhibited, the people and the space around them will be reflected. The first exhibition of the entire piece will be installed on the ceiling of the I.M. Pei space at the Des Moines Art Center in October 2018, curated by Alison Ferris.