Sketches – The Maize
Next Epoch Seed Library
Ellie Irons and I are collaborating on a new project: Next Epoch Seed Library.
Ellie posted our project description and call for participation on Medium. Check it out! We’ll be launching in March and hope to have a varied collection by then with many different species, locations, and contributors represented.
She also had some very pragmatic words on why native species are interesting but not all that great or important or helpful.
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Now some of you may be thinking: this seems like an enjoyable, innocuous activity…sort of…but should we really be gathering and promoting the seeds of weeds? Aren’t they ecologically damaging? Aren’t they a nuisance? Good question! I ….Yes, weedy species are aggressive, often not “native”, and can be prone to altering the composition of delicately balanced, historically relevant ecosystems
BUT: maybe what we need more than historically relevant ecosystems (those that mirror a past ideal of a bio-diverse, well-functioning environment), are living, breathing plants that are up to the task of dealing with the shit-storm we’ve created. Thriving plant communities come with loads of ecological and social benefits. Is it really worth raging against the geographical pedigree of a plant introduced 200 years ago if it’s functioning to stabilize soil, feed late season pollinators, generate oxygen, cool the ground, and improve human mental health? Sure, there are villainous weeds out there (think Kudzu), but it’s all context-based, and plant communities that suffer from being overrun by a weedy villain are often not in the best shape to begin with. Or so I hear from some of the ecologists I’ve grilled on this topic.
In the end, humans have made inaccurate assumptions so many times about so many things, that I’ve decided I’d like to (in general) fall on the side of life. If something has a will to live, I’d like to give it a chance. And these weeds certainly have that in spades. If you’re unconvinced, or want more evidence, I’ve enjoyed and been edified by the sources below over the past few months. As noted by Stuart K. Allison, landscapes decimated by human activity can be restored to their “original historical trajectory” without being returned to “their exact historical past”. This is my point exactly: ecosystems can still be functional with new mixtures of plant communities. Let’s not waste human energy, time, and herbicide fixing something that’s already working. We have bigger fish to fry.
Photo taken by Ellie in a former parking lot in Providence, RI.
Parallel Botany Installation & Opening
Sutras Workshop
A couple weeks ago I lead a public workshop through Chance Ecologies.
View documentation here and stay tuned for this sculpture to be shown at Radiator Gallery this winter.
Studio Shots
Parallel Herbarium to open at The Brunswick Window on June 5th. More info soon!
Photos by Kether Tomkins.
Seed Library Proposal with Ellie Irons
We are drawn to the range of resilient life forms found in neglected urban and suburban landscapes. the contrast between carefully planned and maintained landscapes and spontaneous spaces provides a filter through which to contemplate questions of wilderness versus civilization, biodiversity versus “nativeness”, and the idealized versus the “natural” .
Our proposed project looks closely at plants that tend to live in close association with dense human populations. Growing where others can’t or won’t, the plants held in our seed bank are those best adapted to live in the long shadow we throw on the landscape. Recasting these “weedy” species as companion plants for Anthropocene age, the project draws parallels between the characteristics of successful spontaneous plants and patterns of human population growth and flux in globalized cities. We are encouraging viewers to look at the overlooked and to be aware of how our value systems interact with both humans and non-humans.
We would like to create an interactive library of seeds gathered from wild-growing plants in the Bronx. Anyone can take seeds to plant or add to the library.
It will include:
1. A central piece of furniture built largely from locally scavenged materials. This would be a card-catalog style structure with many small drawers where the seeds are organized and labelled for easy access. A peaked roof will symbolically connect it to the outdoors.
2. A “work table” with envelopes and supplies for adding seeds to the library, plant ID books, a map of the Bronx with sites where we gathered seeds indicated.
3. Photo and video documentation of our process of gathering the seeds.
4. Live plants in pots on the table, at window sills, and on the floor.
5. A project website including an online catalog of available seeds as well as further documentation of their gathering. We will encourage visitors who take seeds to email us photos of their growth.
Inspiration + Links for an Upcoming Project
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Nina Katchedourian – Geneology of the Supermarket
“The Genealogy of the Supermarket interrelates people who appear on common products in the grocery store and organizes them so that they appear to be members of one large family.”
“A “world view” of extreme and almost paranoid interconnectedness emerges. As with many of my map works and chart pieces, the project seems to suggest some underlying coherent research or guiding principal, but the piece ultimately speaks more about taxonomy itself.” — source
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“On the other side of the hedge, however, reality is ours. It is the absolute condition of all existence. The plants that grow there are real because we want them to be. If we find them intact in our memories, the same as when we saw them before, it is because we have invested them with the image that we have of them, with the opaque skin of our own confirmation… Motionless, imperishable, isolated in an imaginary void, they seem to throw out a challenge to the ecological vortex that surrounds them….
“There are plants, for instance, that appear clearly in photographs but are imperceptible to the naked eye. Some violate the normal rules of perspective, looking the same size however close or far they may be from us. Others are colorless, but under certain conditions reveal a profusion of colors of exceptional beauty. One of them has leaves with such a tangled maze of veins that it caused the extinction of a voracious insect that at one time had threatened the vegetation of an entire continent…
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Brandon Keim: Thoughts on Taxidermy, Fashion & Bighorn Sheep
“There are at least two distinct currents to this mainstreaming of naturalia. Label one the Nineteenth Century Explorer: Spiced with steampunk, evoking an age of mannered discovery, gentleman adventurers launching expeditions and returning with tales to delight drawing-room crowds. A spirit of mechanical marvels and curiosity cabinets, maps drawn well but incompletely, of biological ephemera and naturalists’ drawings…..
“…..A psychic escape from the pervasive sense that no space on our map remains blank, that civilization has filled its container and is pushing back inwards. A need for nature in denaturalized lives…..Or maybe the meaning is not so dark. Maybe naturalia frames emerging appreciations of urban and suburban ecologies, or a sense of new, as-yet-unfilled maps arising in digital and social space, freed from old topographies.”
“…..A sign, a signifier, a t-shirt drawing of a deer based on an image found in the first page of Google’s image search. And I can’t shake the feeling that naturalia debases nature, turns animals into objects, renders our beautiful, extraordinary living world and its inhabitants as aesthetic commodities with no more or less meaning than paisley or a bright colorway. It’s life as accessory.”
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From Celestial Empire of Benevolent Knowledge, an essay by Jorge Luis Borges:
“The oriental tome organises animals into categories thus: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.”
Photoshop
I usually use Photoshop to make sketches for proposals, and I enjoy some of the in process views. Here are some screenshots….
The top two photos are from when I was making the sketch in the previous post. I found images of weeds online and pasted them into the file before shrinking them down, erasing the background, and integrating them into the image. But just when I press paste, they look like billboards and oversized jungle plants.
The two photos below that show my process for Herbarium. I took photos of real weeds laid on white paper. In order to increase the image resolution for the entire plant (so that I could blow them up big without becoming too grainy), I took multpile close-up shots and stitched them together in Photoshop. I then color-corrected and erased the background, and imported the file into Illustrator in order to tile the print across standard size paper so I could create the entire thing with my cheapo desktop inkjet.
Proposal
I propose to create a group of 3 to 5 giant flowerpots sunk into the ground, the largest of which could be anywhere from 8 to 15 feet in diameter and 2 to 3 feet tall. These would actually be low, circular walls, and the bottom of the pot would be implied. The walls could also function as public seating.
The lawn would continue to be maintained as usual outside of the flowerpots, but the interior space should be left un-maintained, a wild space for the duration of the exhibition. If possible, I would love for some of the pots to contain existing trees or shrubs.
My material would be concrete, and I would stain it to mimic a terracotta color. I would like to add recycled concrete aggregate to my concrete mix to benefit both the environment and my budget. At the close of the exhibition, I will bring these forms to a local recycling facility to be turned back into aggregate for reuse.
My expenses will include concrete, recycled concrete aggregate, stain, plywood for building forms, and transportation of materials. This would be a relatively affordable project using humble materials, and I’m sure I could realize it within the allotted budget.
These whimsical sculptures invert what normally happens in flowerpots: here, domestication happens on the outside of the pot while attention and maintenance are withheld from the interior area, allowing additional plant species to take root and reveal their potential. These discrete islands of wilderness will take shape over time and the seasons, recalling Alan’s Sonfist’s Time Landscape.
This installation will act as a foil to the domesticated areas of the park, a pocket of wilderness and biodiversity, encouraging viewers to look at the overlooked and to be aware of the complex wilderness growing in the peripheries. It draws attention to what is undervalued from our daily urban environment, how our value systems interact with both humans and non-humans, and, as Gary Snyder wondered, “where do we start to resolve the dichotomy of the civilized and the wild?”
I have been working with weeds over the past year, and I am looking forward to realizing this new idea, which I believe builds on my recent work. I am excited by the economy of this gesture and the way it plays with scale.
#DrewNewGrowth
I deinstalled my sculptures from Drew University a couple of weeks ago. It was wonderful to have these pieces at my alma mater, the University in the Forest! Thanks to Kim Rhodes for coordinating the whole effort and surrounding events (panel, class visits, publications, and this instagram campaign!) Thanks to Stephanie in the facilities department and her crew for such a smooth deinstall. Thanks to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for funding the program.
These babies are now tucked in for the winter in my storage shed, although a select few of the evergreen variety may be making an appearance in my home for Christmas.
Anne Percoco 