Once upon a time…. there was a charming garden beside a castle.
Every day clouds of fog magically appeared in the garden. The fog made some things visible and other things invisible. It curled around trees and wafted through leaves.

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Many wizards had tried to capture the fog but none had succeeded. Only an Ice Maiden was able to create the fog. She did it by talking to the wind and so, together the Ice Maiden and the wind created the fog for all the people who visited the garden.

When the people entered the fog all their senses were heightened. They become unwitting performers appearing and disappearing like ghosts in the misty mass. To dispel the threat of disappearance, they called out loudly to each other. Outside observers laughed as fragments of bodies appeared and disappeared through the fog, an arm here, a head or leg over there.

Once the garden was finished the Queen was invited to open it in a grand ceremony.
But the Ice Maiden was left off the invitation list, in a huff, she vanished.

That was long ago, so long ago that children who play in the garden now, know nothing of the Ice Maiden or her conversations with the wind. But when the children enter the enchanted fog they somehow know that they too are a phenomena and that their spirits matter.

Sounds like a fairy tale:

•Fujiko Nakaya, (a Japanese, woman artist) was the first to patent an apparatus for making cloud sculpture from fog (Patent=#1502386). Her patent is now widely used in agriculture and industry.

•The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) purchased Nayaka San’s work, Foggy wake in a desert: An ecosphere,  for the sculpture garden in 1977.

•Ice is part of Nayaka San’s DNA. Her father was a physicist, who studied glaciers and invented artificial snow.

•Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II opened the NGA in 1982. Nayaka San has never seen the final work installed.

•Nayaka San’s fog sculptures are all site specific – created in relationship to the prevailing winds. They use potable water, pumped at tremendous pressure through nozzles mounted on racks. A fine needle inside each nozzle splits the water into 20-30-micron fog droplets.

•Nakaya San has pioneered immersive art forms that involve audiences. To perfect her craft she worked with physicists and engineers in the Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) group.

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•Artists such as William Turner, the Impressionists and Lloyd Rees amongst others all tried to capture the atmosphere of fog on canvas. Only Nayaka San has created fog naturally.