In 2008, ecoartspace co-curated an exhibition for Exit Art in NYC entitled Environmental Performance Actions, which included a video documentation of Agents of Change, a Unit Earth Agenda project developed by Shelley Sacks and James Reedof the Social Sculpture Research Unit, Oxford Brookes University (UK). Although I was familiar with the work, yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Reed in San Francisco and to experience first hand what it might be like to be an "official" agent of change.
A group of five participants met at noon at the new Intersection 5M gallery, located in the San Francisco Chronicle building at Mission Street and 5th, where we spent three hours in an open discussion on what is agency and sharing personal experiences that catalyzed change in our lives. We then heading down to 4th at Mission Bay where we put on customized Agents of Change life preserver vests and held large wooden measuring sticks that illustrated the depth of several meters of potential water encroachment due to climate change. Each participant stood on their own along the waterway and was encourage to reflect on our own sense of agency in this situation, the site, and to record others concerns. Attached to the life preserver was a booklet where we could register and offer a receipt to passersby, confirming their concerns about climate change.
Reed studied under Shelley Sacks, a former student and collaborator of Joseph Beuys at Oxford Brookes from 2005-2007. It was during this time that they developed the Agents of Change climate change kits and began what has become a series of workshops and public interventions initiated at the Social Sculpture Today exhibition in Basel, Switzerland in April 2007.
Questions this project asks are:
How do we develop a wider personal and philosophical framework that cultivates a deep sense of personal and shared meanings?
How do we develop a culture of transforming our mode of consciousness?
How can we begin to realize our full potential as human beings and work as transformers of the materialist thought systems that shape our world?
While living in Northern California the last five years, I have seen work by many artists who are concerned with environmental issues. The paintings and fiber works by Linda MacDonald have continued to inspire me during this time and I recently had the opportunity to curate a small show of her graphic narratives at Gallery Route One in Point Reyes (Marin County). The show was part ofWITH THE EARTH: Art and the Environment project at GRO, an ongoing exhibition series initiated in 1990 in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Below is an excerpt of my catalogue essay:
Most can only imagine what it is like to witness first hand the social and economic impacts of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest. For those living in urban cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, etc., or wide open spaces in the southwest, we know on a visceral level that over time the removal of large areas of old growth, or Rainforest, has a “fragmenting” effect on us all.
Linda MacDonald, however, experiences the visual evidence of our insatiable consumption daily in her own backyard. Born in Berkeley, and raised in Marin, she moved to Mendocino County in Northern California with her husband in 1970. They purchased fourteen acres in the “north woods” near Willits where they renovated an abandoned log cabin. It was during this period, spent out in the trees, where MacDonald decided to devote her studio time to establishing an arts practice in fiber and painting. After seven years and having two children, they decided to move to town for logistical reasons. And, it has been the highs and the lows of living in a timber-based economy, including California’s redwood tourism, that has inspired a lifetime of capturing this uniquely American regional vernacular.
Included were over 20 pieces with paintings, prints and fiber works. There is a 20-page catalogue which can be purchased for $15 directly from the artist (linda@lindamacdonald.com). The exhibition ran from May 14 - June 20, 2010.Facebook event informationHERE.
Top: Triangles in the Forest, 2007 (oil on paper) Middle:Down by the River, 2009 (oil on paper) Bottom:California Trees, 2009 (oil on paper)
We're fast approaching my fav time of the year, Subtle Technologies, June 4 - 6. I've been involved in this annual festival since its inception in 1996. It attracts some of the most innovative artists, scientists and thinkers from around the world started as an intimate weekend gathering hosted by an arts collective at InterAccess Gallery in Toronto. We were inspired by a project initiated by one of our members who after returning from visiting several ancient sacred sites, wanted to collaborate with us to build one in Toronto. She shared her excitement and wonder, noting that the sacred sites were built with the latest technologies of their time, some of which have now been lost. We wondered what the latest technologies were of our time.
With seed funding from the programming committee at InterAccess, we invited scientists and technologists to inform us and the Subtle Technologies Festivalwas born. Our very first weekend event in 1996 was a magical meeting of minds. It was small, intimate, exciting. We had potluck dinners and discussions over pints of beer. We felt like we were at the centre of the universe, rediscovering lost parts of ourselves and discussing issues that were vital to the planet.
Fourteen years later, the festival is still alive with the sense of awe and wonder guided by our original mission. This year the theme is Sustainability. From June 4 - 6 noted presenters will converge on Toronto to share their work and rub shoulders with attendees in an intimate and friendly atmosphere.
Here are a few of the highlights of this year's fest...
Junk to Juice DIY power generation on the cheapMay 29th & 30th, 12pm – 5pm at OCAD Learn how to make you own electricity using generators built from trash. The generators will run off simple, non-polluting, sources, such as waste heat and wind. This workshop is by Hacket, director of The Madagascar Institute
Contingent Ecologies May 22 to June 12, 2010. Opening – June 4, 2010. Unconventional thinkers create the future in this exhibition of build environments in public space curated by myself, Camille Turner, and Michael Alstad.
In Water Colours, an art and science boat cruise Saturday, June 5th 7:30PM to midnight Come and party with us as we rock the boat with the sparkling Toronto skyline as backdrop. Festivities include a recital by Gordon Monahan on his new instrument, the “Sauerkraut Synthesizer” and Zev Asherperforming a documentary film starring his body. The voyage will be the vessel for a program of video and sound art chosen to reflect concerns for the water in and below us.
Community Day Sunday, June 6, 2010 Learn how to create a do-it-yourself garden to grow your own food! See an exciting documentary about two linguist adventurers searching for lost languages! Play in the mud with our interactive seed bombing activity! Explore, create and learn!
Camille Turner is a Toronto-based artist and cultural producer who uses media and performance to build bridges across cultures and differences. She is a curator with the Subtle Technologies Festival.
It's hard to believe almost an entire month has passed since our NYC benefit. It was a whirlwind month with exhibitions in three spaces simultaneously as well as two evening events. First for theWhat Matters Most? exhibition at Exit Art we began hanging the show on April 13th with 200 works which grew to 290 before the final sale date of April 28th. We hung the show in rows of 2 but ended up with a few salon style walls. The works were amazingly diverse and interesting. Some addressed the NY Times dot earth question that we posted to initiate the project - others were more generally about nature and/or art's relationship with nature - and the range encompassed every medium from pencil drawings, watercolors and oil paintings to 3D objects in ceramics and metal - to photography and video. We were genuinely overwhelmed with the generosity of the donating artists and the amount of time and effort that went into creating their beautiful and inspiring works of art. Midway through the exhibition, ecoartspace presented afree evening of programs at Exit Art which included the documentary film Crude:The Real Price of Oil by Joe Berlinger, a gripping film about the ongoing and protracted legal battle between Texaco/Chevron and a small community of Ecuadorian indigenous people. Their lands and water have been polluted by these oil companies with high instances of cancer and disease in the local population. Following the screening, artist Jackie Brookner delivered a needed uplifting lecture about the relationship between humans and the natural world with many provocative images. She also read from her recent book, Urban Rain published in conjunction with a major public art project of the same name in San Jose, CA. Closing the evening, Elizabeth Thompson, Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, presented images and information about the Buckminster Fuller Challenge finalists. The inspirational Challenge finalists project proposals range from natural water irrigation systems, monitoring air pollution, creating neighborhood local food economies, and reversing desertification of the world's savannas and grassland. On June 2nd the BFI Challenge winner will be announced and given the deserved $100,000.00 cash prize to work towards implementation of their proposal.
The following week, for the ecoartspace closingeveningpartyand sale, we hosted over 150 guests who purchased 45 artworks, enjoyed delicious food, IZZE sodas (all donated), wine and beer at the Exit Art underground bar and music by David Rothenberg and Ben Neill in the adjacent theater/lounge. The Exit Art staff were supremely helpful and gracious with their time throughout the 2 week exhibition and during the party.All in all - it was a monumentaleffort for which we raised nearly $10,000 (not bad for a first time event)! At the same time, over at Chashama at W. 44th St, ecoartspacesponsored another exhibition by the Habitat for Artists (HFA) team titled "Recycling the Studio." In this very high trafficked block (which was closed off to vehicles the night of the opening) passersby could wander in and experience a mini artist's studio (habitat) with an opening window that looked out to 44th Street, as well as an art exhibition by 15 artists involved with the HFA project including mainstays Simon Draper, Todd Sargood and Chris Manning. Wall Street Journal writer Wendy Bounds spent a day inside the habitat blogging about her experience.
At the opposite end of Manhattan in Battery Park City, another ecoartspacesponsored project was on view as part of the World Financial Arts program. Artists Suzanne and Mathilde Husky installed their miniature "bonsai tree" installation titled Forest, sculptures made from sewn used and recycled clothing. It was installed in a long bank of storefront windows in the World Financial Winter Garden where thousands of people stroll through everyday during their lunch break or as visitors to the riverfront walkway just outside. It was exciting for us and for the artists to be involved in such high profile venues and in conjunction with other 40th anniversary Earth Day celebrations.
images from top to bottom: installation view of What Matters Most? at Exit Art David Rothenberg and Ben Neill in performance at Exit Art Wendy Bounds reporting from Chashama Forest at World Financial Center
Twenty-six contemporaryNorthwest artists respond to environmental concerns in Critical Messages, curated by Sarah Clark-Langager. Familiar leaders in environmental art, such as Buster Simpson and Chris Jordan, join with emerging artists in Clark-Langager’s invitational exhibit in the Western Gallery at Western Washington University (Bellingham); the exhibit will also travel to the Hallie Ford Museum in Willamette, Oregon, and the Boise Art Museum in Idaho. Most of the work takes a light touch to the issues, using beauty or even humor to drive home the poignant messages. American Romantic landscape traditions haunt the paintings, prints, and photographs, as fine craftsmanship clashes ironically with subject matter. The sculptural works are more inquisitive, particularly John Grade’s “Collector." The elegant forms were anchored in seawater for 16 months to grow harvestable oysters and seaweed, then bolted to the front-end of a truck and driven for a thousand miles, thenmounted for birds to pick clean. Vaughn Bell’s “Personal Biospheres,” (wearable ecosystems for one person), Karen Rudd’s “Last Stand” (enormous tree stumps made from cardboard), and Susan Robb’s “Signal Transduction” (electronics which mimic the communications used by plants) are also highlights from this astute survey of works.
Submitted by guest blogger Deanna Pindell who makes ecologically-focused installations and public art. Portfolio and daily eco-art postings at: www.facebook.com
Apologies to our ecoartspace fans who are looking for recent posts here. Both Amy and I have been flooded with a range of projects and travels the last couple months that have taken our focus away from the blog. After the benefit we will resume posts in May, promise.
We invite you to either come to the exhibition benefit at Exit Art this month or spread the word to your friends in New York who can attend. It is an affordable adventure, one that is supporting important work to help provide a platform for artists addressing environmental issues in the visual arts.
Please join us in celebrating 10 years of programming!
Go to the What Matters Most? benefit blog to get updated information HERE.
ecoartspace invites you to participate in our first NYC benefit exhibition titled What Matters Most? The show and benefit party will be hosted by Exit Art in NYC from April 15 – 28th, 2010.
What Matters Most? began with responses to this question posted on Monday February 15th on Andrew Revkin’s NY Times blog, Dot Earth by leading environmental experts, writers and readers and is still active in the archive (click on Dot Earth above). Participating artists have the option of creating an original artwork related to the blog entry of their choice or donating an existing work.
All proceeds from this fundraiser will support ecoartspace activities and programs. ecoartspace has been operating as a bicoastal nonprofit platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999. In our ten years of programming we have worked with over 400 artists, curated 38 exhibitions, 70 programs and collaborated with over 140 organizations. To celebrate our achievements as well as raise money for future programs we recently held our first benefit auction at Mina Dresden Gallery in San Francisco on December 4th, 2009.
What Matters Most? begins Thurs April 15, 2010 and ends with our Benefit Sale: Thursday, April 28th , 2010. PLEASE CLICK ON THE FLYER ABOVE FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION.
CONTACT: amy@ecoartspace.org or tricia@ecoartspace.org
276 artists participating as of 4.10 include:
Joan Bankemper, Andrea Reynosa, Joy Garnett, Michele Brody, Chrysanne Stathacos, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Diane Burko, Sandy Gellis, Fritz Haeg, Steven Siegel, Joanne Greenbaum, Lisa Hoke, Dove Bradshaw, Jaanika Peerna, Chris Kennedy, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky, Teri Hackett, Elizabeth Demaray, Robert Lobe, Kathleen Gilje, David Schafer, Claudia Hart, Lori Nozick, Christy Rupp, Kathe Burkhart, Joanne Howard, Abigail Doan, Alan Wexler, Charles Goldman, Marion Wilson, Emily Brown, Katie Holten, Robin Kahn, Nina Yankowitz, Carter Hodgkin, Geoffrey Hendricks, Nina Katchadourian, Hunter Reynolds, Erik Hanson, Janet Pihlblad, Kunie Suguira, J.J. L’Hereux, Austin Thomas, Mikael Levin, Rhona Bitner, Michael Somoroff, Sandi Slone, Jill Levine, Steve Keister, Alison Moritsugu, LC Armstrong, Stacy Levy, Jan Harrison, David Webster, Simon Draper, Mary Mattingly, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Ann Rosenthal, Steffi Domike, Mary Ann Strandell, Kazumi Tanaka, Aviva Rahmani, Robin Lasser, Brandon Ballengee, Shan Wells, Carla Gannis, James Brady, Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Lenore Malen, Thomas Huber, Rick Mills, Alan Michelson, Lisa Adams, Chrissie Orr, Susan Silas, Elisa Pritzker, Joy Episalla, Carrie, Yamaoka, Eve Andree Laramee, Jenny Hankwitz, Sant Khalsa, Melissa McGill, David Nyzio, Molly Herman, Mary Anne Davis, George Lea, Ruth Hardinger, Glenna Cole Allee, Suzan Shutan, Cathey Billian, Leonard Bullock, Stefan Hagen, Barbe Slitkin, Stefanie Nagorka, K.K. Kozik, Carla Goldberg, Claudia Schwalb, Joan Perlman, Monika Teal, Bill Schuck, Despo Magoni, Gregory Botts, Steven Kenny, Jackie Brookner, Tom Snelgrove, Lisa Adams, Dianne Bowen, Catherine Harris, Jennifer Cecere, Truman T. Lowe, Doug Henders, Rodney Samuelson, Stephanie Brody-Lederman, Mimi Smith, Kathryn Lynch, Basia Irland, Joel Tauber, Xavier Cortada, Beverly Naidus, Peter Bynum, Kathleen Sweeney, Anne Senstad, Brian Alfred, Ron Klein, Cameron Davis, Catherine Chalmers, Daniel Reiser, Suzy Sureck, Yo Park, Karen Dolmanisth, Susan English, Oliver Wasow, Catherine Howe, Deborah Kass, Song Xin, Richard Bruce, Sharon Butler, Jill Slaymaker, Terri Amig, Charlotte Schulz, Brenda Zlamany, Jennifer Zackin, Sarah Bliss, Abigail Stern, Brenda Zlamany, Peggy Cyphers, Mauro Zamora, Marilla Palmer, Daniel Wiener, Bill Schuck, Cynthia Robinson, Chuck Agro, Laura Lynch, Gabriella Russomagno, Ed Bisese, Matt Bua, Jill Vasileff, Janet Biggs, Lorrie Fredette, Tânia Pires, Judy Glantzman, J. Henry Fair, Mary Jones, Kim Holleman, Jane Marsching, Ming Fay, Rosa Valado, Nikki Johnson, Sarah Hinckley, Ryan Cronin, Paul Dacey, Kyle Gallup, Amy Caterina, Constance Merriman, Vaughn Bell, Philip Krohn, Andrea Polli & Joe Gilmore, Gary Brewer, John Rolof, Sarah Pedlow, Ruri, Stephen Kaltenbach, Nils-Udo, Samanthan Fields, Ned Kahn, Sylvia Tidwell, Lillian Ball, Mark Andrew Gravel, Karen Rietzel, Therese Lahaie, Mark Brest van Kempen, Joan Perlman, Joan Baron, Alastair Noble, The Canary Project, Jason Houston, John Hitchcock, Jenny Hankwitz, Ulricke Arnold, Nina Dubois, Dianna Cohen, Talia Cotton, James Andrews, Nsumi Collective, Jacki Apple, Annie Kyle, Larry Krone, Nikko Sedgwick, Lewis de Soto, Cary Peppermint, Mardi Burnham, Nathan Goddard, Lawrence Miller, Robin Tewes, Roy Staab, Aleta Wolfe, Federica Matta, Suzanne McClelland, Peter Iannarelli, Nick Lamia, Todd Sargood, Ruth Wallen, Nitin Mukul, Alyce Santoro, Peter L. Johnson, Suzanne Stryk, Raquel Rabinovich, Amy Bassin, Thomas Eller, Jennifer Zackin, Catherine Tirr, Laura Lynch, David Chow, Maxine Henryson, Marika Arapoglou, Christopher Beatty, Christopher Been, Margaret Carey, Kristin Chin, Karen Chubak, Alicia Duque, Lourd Bennett Galvez, Karen Koo, Aubin Norwood, Philip Song, Alison Schuettinger, Claudia Seniro, Claire Snavely, Michelle Tse, Patrick Janssen Toh, Hannah Zingre, Helene Wasserman, Jennifer Timmer, Sarah McCoubrey, Veru Narula, Craig Wickwire, Sheilah Rechtschaffer, Joseph Smolinsky, Suzanne Anker, Janet Faith Farb, Chere Krakovsky, Kim Mayhew, Lael Marshall, Arlene Rush, Norm Magnusson, Gina Vigliarolo, Frie J. Jacobs, Aline Mare, Greg Patch, Rosalind Schneider, Dennis Mcleod, Bill Schuck, Santiago Adeoye, Jason Middlebrook, Kimberley Hart, Mary Miss,
We give thanks to Exit Art for their support. This event is a continuation of our relationship with the Social-Environmental Aesthetic (SEA) program including our participation in The Drop exhibition in 2006 and EPA in 2008.
"Cleaning System" prototype installed at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin County, CA, 2000
Since the late 1980s, Bay Area artist Mark Brest van Kempen has produced art that connects people with plant and animal habitat, architecture and infrastructure. His interest is to reveal the social, ecological and historical layers that encompass a given “place.” His early influences growing up in Utah were Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. And, although he does not physically shape the land as his medium, his real inspiration has been the pursuit to convey how to live on the land sustainably.
There are a number of artists today concerned with how we interact with nature, and Brest van Kempen is one of a handful that have chosen the long hard road to create “green” public art. His commitment to educating about ecological systems is evident, as after 20 years he has only recently begun to see the fruits of his labor. This is a product of both his dedication to this work and the more recent interest and evolution of public art department directors who are seeking to capture funding for projects via water and transportation infrastructure funding.
In 2000, Brest van Kempen created an indoor wetland prototype entitled “Cleaning System” while in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin (CA). The installation diverted wastewater from a washing machine into a filtration pond of plants, tadpoles and fish to clean and monitor the health of the water. “This piece was part of a series of works to research and develop human infrastructures that can be grafted to natural systems, blurring the distinction between natural and man-made,” stated Brest van Kempen. The excess water flowed outside the building to water exterior plants.
The following year he created another installation at the Headlands entitled Drinking Fountain for People and Plants, a functional fountain designed to return a portion of city water to native plants, filtering the water and sending it back to the sewer clean. In this work, a person takes a drink from the fountain, which then transports the excess water down a diagonal planter, watering plants, thus giving back to nature. This work exemplifies Brest van Kempen belief that, “Taking and giving are automatically intertwined in the same act.”
These two works have been pivotal for the artist’s career and have increased his eligibility for sustainable public art projects. By charting this new territory Brest van Kempen broke ground for visual artists who have primarily shown in galleries and who have created temporal site-specific works with nonprofits in the public sphere, to do more large scale infrastructure artworks.
Ravenna Creek Project, 2002-2009
For two decades watershed groups in Seattle rallied to redirect a creek, naturally fed by springs and runoff, which had been diverted to a sewer line and water treatment plant over fifty years ago. This short-sighted decision unnecessarily treated the creek water, and by 2002, the county stepped up to divert Ravenna Creek back to where it had flowed historically, except now mostly underground. Brest van Kempen was then competitively selected through a national public art RFQ process and was invited to trace this historical and present day Ravenna streambed down a one-mile corridor to Lake Washington, which flows into Union Bay.
The public art works created for the Ravenna Creek Project, which are currently in multiple phases of completion, include an outfall structure and viewing station where the creek enters the pipeline underground from the park; and additional interventions along the sidewalks to the lake including three daylighting vaults, blue demarcation lines and inset spelling ‘Ravenna Creek’ on the sidewalks, and embedded plaques with inset capsules of native seed inside. For this project Brest van Kempen memorialized the existence of Ravenna Creek, working hand-in-hand with the City of Seattle Parks and Recreation and Metro/King County Drainage and Wastewater (Public Art Budget $200,000).
Upcoming Projects
For those of you living in or visiting the Bay Area, the unveiling of Brest van Kempen’s latest public art project in Oakland, Views of the Greenbelt, includes a combination of sculptural viewing devices, strategically placed sculptures of native flora and fauna, and interpretive signage to focus viewers' attention on the history and ecology of the Rockridge-Temescal Greenbelt and Temescal Creek. Funding was allocated by a local measure for Clean Water & Safe Parks passed in 2002, which provided $2.8 million for public art projects pertaining to this measure. This project was competitively commissioned through the City of Oakland’s Public Art Commission in 2005 (Public Art Budget $75,000).
Brest van Kempen was also selected this summer by the City of San Jose's Environmental Services Department (ESD) and the Public Art Program in collaboration with the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant to create an interpretive artwork as an integrative aspect of the current Plant tours. Some 4,000 visitors each year are invited to consider the issues that impact water conservation to help ensure the safe treatment of 110 million gallons of sewage a day on behalf of 1.4 million residents (Public Art Budget $100,000).
It is projects like these, green sustainable public art, that create what the Oakland Arts Commission considers “social equity . . . which can enhance the educational, recreational and aesthetic aspects of the landscape, adding quality of life and appreciation for the ecology of the land. To make accessible or transparent the processes that provide clean water can help safeguard communities.” The use of public art as a catalyst for community dialogue is a unique and exciting opportunity for the general public, utilities providers, and the art world. Mark Brest van Kempen’s work is subtle, almost invisible in some cases. However, sustainable art is about walking lightly on the land, something that this artist knows how to do very well.
Originally published in the Center for Sustainable Practices in the Arts Quarterly Newsletter September 2009. To purchase the full issue go HERE
