The Whatcom Museum in Bellingham is opening a new building next weekend, designed by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen, and dubbed the Lightcatcher for its elliptical 34-foot-long wall of glass. Images of the building are here.

John Grade—he of the biodegradable, buried, wind-whipped, canyon-residing, glacier-sitting sculptures—has the major opening exhibition in the 26-foot-high gallery. It's called Elephant Beds, and it's inspired by the microscopic algae that formed the white cliffs of Dover.

An enlarged version of it premiered at Fabrica in Brighton this summer: 20 white bell-shaped objects suspended from filaments hung in the deconsecrated church. Over time, half of them descended into a pool of ink, where they disintegrated (they are made of water-degradable corn-based polymer and paper). At the end of the exhibition, the other half were marched down the road and straight into the English Channel.

In Bellingham, the installation is half as large: Five will descend into ink; the other five will be walked into Bellingham Bay. Grade hopes he'll be able to get video of them underwater this time; in the English Channel the waves were too powerful. The Bellingham walk will take place April 10, after they've been in the gallery for five months.

Here's a video of the installation underway in Bellingham; awesome images from Brighton on the jump.