SunFlowers, An Electric Garden, a public artwork wanting to generate solar energy

an interview with Mags Harries and Lajos Héder by Patricia Watts

"The sun sustains all of our lives…. All of our energy is originally solar energy, (and) it has created our world and fuels all our activities. Coal and oil are stored solar energy, but they are running out, and obtaining and processing them causes problems. For our future, it is a question of how we capture and use solar energy, so that it keeps us going without environmental catastrophe. The sun and its light are the medium of most art.”  Mags Harries and Lajos Héder

Mags Harries and Lajos Héder are a wife and husband artist/architect duo who have worked collaboratively to create public art works across the United States from their studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1990, they have completed over thirty public art projects with budgets up to $6 million. With the upcoming total solar eclipse in the path of totality in Austin, Texas, where Harries and Héder created a solar-powered work titled SunFlowers and where ecoartspace will hold a pop-up event nearby on April 6 at Canopy, we feature an interview with the collaborative team discussing the trials and tribulations of creating a large-scale work in the public sphere addressing energy resilience.

Q. In 2006, SunFlowers was chosen out of 37 proposals for a signature art installation at Mueller, a LEED-certified planned community with eco-conscious mixed-use development, including single-family homes, apartment complexes, as well as retail offices and restaurants. Your solar artwork was selected by the community and was the most popular as well as innovative at the time. I can imagine you were super excited to create a work that was both aesthetically interesting, practical, and self-sustaining. Almost twenty years ago, what were the challenges of creating such an innovative public artwork?

A. Each proposal and or commission we do is always particular to the place. It is important that we observe and see what are the elements that make this place unique. What was unique about the project in Austin, Texas was that the 711 acre former Mueller airport had been transformed as an ecological community development. Of the 37 RFQ applicants, 4 finalists were asked to create a proposal to mask the Big Box companies that had been built on the edge of this development along the major Interstate Highway I-35, a six-lane expressway. This seemed like an impossible task. Rather than mask development, we decided to reinforce what was important about this site, its environmental goals to create a livable community. I-35 runs north-south, perfect to capture solar energy. The site, which is 1000 x 30 feet long, has a substantial easement from the highway that is maintained by state mowing crews. We are not artists that think of making iconic stand alone work but the site was huge and the fast-moving traffic was our audience. We would create an impact that was strong enough to detract from seeing the large box retail. We had a choice. We could create multiple elements that would face in one direction, or the other choice to have one unit that would track the sun that would not have the same visual impact.

We knew nothing about solar technology so we had to find a company that could help us design the system. We had to find someone that could build our solar panels and a glass company that could cut and drill glass. As these pieces would also be experienced from below, it was important that we sandwiched gels in the glass to create a feeling of stained glass when looking up at them. Each of these elements had to be researched and tested. As these were not standard modules they had to be electrically certified. We made ¼ scale models out of foam board to develop the form and then had an engineer to calculate whether the forms were strong enough to resist 100mph winds. As with all our projects we employed local companies to build and paint the forms and engineer the project.

Q. I understand there was a delay in launching SunFlowers, as the flowers did not glow as intended due to complications with the solar panels? Is this something that today would not represent such a problem? with technological advances in the solar industry?

A. There was a lot of research that had to go into this project. I think we would go with the same process at this time, unless we used standard sizes that were already certified. We had many people contact us after the work was officially launched, even a representative of the Chinese government who inquired about making more. Though, this might not have been economically feasible. There are more solar companies and expertise now that might make it easier, and tax incentives that did not exist then. We pushed the boundaries by making a non standard shape. Because the public could walk under the panels, the glass had to be laminated. The colored gels were also special. It was important that the underside of the panel would be beautiful.

We never repeat a project elsewhere, so we would have had to redesign a different form, perhaps with a different shape of solar. Would it have been more economical? Probably not, but we did have command of the process and technology changes all the time. The LED lighting was also specially designed to be brighter.

Q. The Powerdash online monitoring site is currently not working. Is this something you feel strongly should be relaunched? How long was it tracking the energy generation? And, what is the current generation, kilowatt-hours each year?

A. The Powerdash online monitoring system was funded after the project was up by another grant so that schoolchildren could monitor how much energy it was creating. It was measuring 1800 KW hours per year. Anne Graham, who worked with the city was responsible to get that grant. From an article she found, over a nine year period SunFlowers had generated 386,006 kWh, the equivalent of 565,000 miles of carbon emissions from a car.

Q. The 15 Sunflowers are considered one of the largest public art works in the City of Austin and had a budget over $600,000, fifteen years ago. Do you think it would cost the same today?

A. I am not sure what it would cost today as these were all specially cut and designed. There are more solar companies today, though are all using standard fixtures. Perhaps it would be harder to find collaborators as there is more demand as people are installing more and more solar units on their homes. This project was done at a time that solar was not as popular and certainly not experienced as an art project.  

Q. Has the project received any awards? It seems like the Public Art Network should have recognized this work.

A. I think the only award was the Livable City Vision Award in 2010 (Austin, Texas). Because this was administered by the city public art program, they never recognized it as theirs. And, the city did not submit SunFlowers to the Americans for the Arts, Public Art Network Conference.

Q. The selection process was coordinated through the city’s Art in Public Places program, but the development is private, owned by Catellus Development Group. How common is this arrangement? I know most of your public art projects have been coordinated through city programs. Was working with a private developer easier or more complicated?

A. We have one other project similar to this in Philadelphia titled Light Play (2016), also administered by the city public art program for a private developer on a building in the arts district. I do not know how many cities demand such a partnership. As the public art field is hard and there is high turnover in administration, maintenance records, which we always provide can get lost. On this project our same point person is still with the company. We have direct contact with him. Oftentimes city agencies do not have a maintenance budget, or someone employed by the city to maintain public art pieces. Perhaps a private company has more incentive to maintain a public artwork.

Q. From your artist statement for SunFlowers you state that the sun and its light are the medium of most art, can you expand on this concept?

A. Projects that came after SunFlowers include Light Gate (2015), Light Play (2016), and Xixi Umbrellas (2012), which are also all directly related to the sun and light. Engaging the sun allows there to be a daily change of perception. In a city like Austin, it was amazing how few people were installing solar power. It seemed we were selected because the city saw itself as forward looking, all the other artists proposed Texas stereotypes. I am sure we were also aware that it was a good move to demonstrate that Catellus had created a new environmentally friendly development from an old airfield.

Q. There are organizations that focus on technology based artworks to offer inspiration and practical applications for energy generation, such as the platform called Land Art Generator, directed by Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian. I was a panelist for their Freshkills Park (Staten Island, NY) awards in 2013, and wrote an essay for their Powering Places (Santa Monica, CA) initiative in 2016. Something that concerns me with technology-based art is that it can often be a way to entertain more than a real world impact, by reducing our need for fossil fuels. For you, what percentage of this type of work should be art or entertainment and how much supporting ecological systems? What would be the best balance?

A. Rarely do we do work on this scale. But we were dealing with a huge highway, it had to have scale to be significant. It was important to us that it actually harvested energy and that one of the seven panels of each illuminated the flowers at night. It had to be iconic. Power dash was a way that children could monitor it so in that way it was a teaching tool, not entertainment. Change is important to this piece to see it during the day, then at night. The other thing we extended our site to include the large mowed grass embankment. We planted seeds from the Ladybird Johnson Foundation so that this “no man’s land” would burst with wildflowers. We also negotiated with the State Highway crews to only mow after the flowering season. This piece is not only experienced from the highway but it also has an inter-twining walking path between the SunFlowers. And, the path connects two open spaces parks within the development. Do these actions create change? I am not sure, but it is important to embrace something that one believes in.

Having had a recent conversation with Leo Lopez at Catellus who told us that the inverters had been stolen, which at a minimum would cost $100,000 to replace, it is sad that Sunflowers can no longer harness energy. They will, however, be sure that the flowers will be lit at night, though from an electric source and not by its own energy. So perhaps now fourteen years later they exist as a symbol rather than generating their own energy. This does not make us happy, but hopefully they will still be an important landmark for Austin. The sad part of public art it is that it is out there in the elements and so many of our projects have little budgets to restore and maintain them. What is important is that Catallus cares to maintain them. In that way the SunFlowers are successful.

Mags and Lajos, thank you for sharing about your experience with this inspiring solar work.

NOTE: As of today, led by California, rooftop solar installations fell by 12 percent nationally in 2023. It’s the first decline since 2017. It is estimated that California, which accounts for the bulk of the United States market, will see a 41 percent drop in 2024. Over 100 solar companies filed bankruptcy in 2023. (Article published January 26, 2024, Grist)

February 2024 e-Newsletter for subscribers is here

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

January 15, 2024

This week we recognize  Millicent YoungMillicent Young, and her ongoing work made with natural materials including sculpture and installations.

"In 1997, I saw the film Calling the Ghosts: A Story About Rape, War and Women, a documentary about building the ultimately successful case before The Hague court to classify rape as a war crime. If I Speak... (above) tackles the complexities of testifying: of re-inhabiting the wound that the telling of one's story of violation and survival requires. As importantly, it asks "If I speak who is listening?" In the work, the testimony of Bosnian rape camp survivors is printed on both sides of the seven suspended ceramic folios. Printed in reverse on the verso, the excerpts are readable in the reflections in the wall mounted mirror alongside marks of violence that the thin clay bears. Simultaneously, the viewer sees their own face reflected in the mirror as they become part of the story unfolding in real time.  If I Speak... dismantles separations we make and interrogates the moveable boundaries between witness, survivor, and perpetrator, between observed and observer, between there and here, then and now."

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Sweet Chariot, 2011 (above) is from Young's series titled Vehicles, which explores hybridity of animal, plant, and wheel. At times playful, at times menacing, the forms invite reflection on the wheel, an invention that altered the evolution of human civilization and a symbol that possesses such archetypal power.

When There Were Birds (i), 2019 (above) began as a sculptural installation for an exhibition at 11 Jane Street in Saugerties, New York. Six months later, it developed into a collaborative performance with three musicians, including Iva Bittova, Steve Gorn, and Timothy Hill. The initial installation and sonic explorations were captured with video (click image). The collaboration ultimately wove the trio's improvisational music, Young's choreography, and several poems by Jane Hirshfield and Eileen Myles spoken by the artist with the 13 suspended forms into When There Were Birds (ii), a single live, sold-out performance at Broken Wing Barn also in Saugerties. The natural late afternoon November light that shafted in through the clerestory and skylights was used as the start of the piece. The feeling of the 280-year-old barn and the farm-to-table meal that followed brought an intimacy to the project.

Ceasefire (Gathering the Bones of the Beloved), 2023 (above) does not make a distinction between the slaughter of ecocide and genocide. Nor between historical periods and forms of lamentation. The ceasefire of the title is also a sonnet of the same name by contemporary Irish poet Michael Longley, referring not only to the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland but also to the Trojan War and the sacrifice peace requires.

"Entering Millicent Young’s site-specific retrospective Alter Altar: 20 Years, 2023 (below) in the two newly refurbished barns is like entering a concise representation of human history. Themes of loss, reverence, extinction, as well as shared humanity and the longing for connection, permeate Young’s detached and poetic presentation. Her use of locally found materials pays homage to the Hudson River valley and the stillness to be found here; indeed, the viewer feels as though she has entered a sanctuary, a place to sit still and let the natural process of appreciation unfold. Attention, like Ariadne’s thread (referenced in one piece), travels from one thoughtful work to the next, leaving rashness behind. One senses that Young has taken the time to hone her technical skills, to tend to her ideas, to let her metaphorical offerings ripen."  click image below to continue reading review in Sculpture magazine by Nina MDivani

Millicent Young    studied visual art, craft, music, and poetry at The Dalton School and in the museums and streets of New York City, which formed the foundation of her broad art education. Cross-cultural childhood experiences and encounters with profound poverty, the diversity of her family background, and her immersion in rural lifeways and wilderness were formative influences on the artist's social conscience and citizenship. Young went on to study at Wesleyan University, the University of Virginia (BA 1984), the University of Denver, and James Madison University (MFA 1997). Young was an art educator from 1986–2003, teaching studio art and art appreciation at the secondary and college levels and hybrid forms of movement practices in a community dance studio. Since 1993, she has worked as a freelance master gardener and landscape designer, focusing on permaculture and healing. Young has received two Professional Artist Fellowships from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; four grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (NYC); and two individual artist grants from the New York State Council on the Arts/Arts Mid Hudson. Her work is included in the National Museum of Women in the Arts collection. Young's work was featured on the cover of Sculpture Magazine (March/April 2020). In 2022, she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Art, Design, and Art History at James Madison University. Young currently resides in the Hudson Valley, New York, having relocated from rural Piedmont, Virginia, in 2017. She designed and built her current live/work space in the foothills of the Shawangunks. Her intimacy with place and all who inhabit it shapes Young's practices daily. www.millicentyoung.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©Millicent Young, If I Speak…, 1998, ceramic, steel, mirror, testimony from a survivor of the rape camps excerpted from War Crimes in Bosnia-Hercegovina vol.II. 82 x 91 x 10 inches; Vehicles, 2009-2012, Sweet Chariot, 2011, hickory, grapevine, adobe, twine, hair, 39 x 106 x 42inches; When There Were Birds (i), 2019, grapevine, hair; Ceasefire (Gathering the Bones of the Beloved), 2023, cedar, cherry, oak, steel shackles, barbed wire; 45 x 25 x 53 inches; ALTER ALTAR: 20 Years (2023); Portrait of the artist in her studio. All images courtesy of the artist.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

January 8, 2024

This week we recognize    Nancy Winship Milliken Nancy Winship Milliken, and her place-based environmental art practice since 2008.

Tika Whare, 2013 (above) is a site-specific installation in Turangi, New Zealand on the Te Hapua farm owned by the Truebridge family. In Maori, Tika Whare (pronounced Teaka Phorae) means true home. "The home is made of materials all found on the farm: bamboo, silage netting, and the wool from the thousands of sheep that surrounded me while I worked out in the paddocks. The flexible structure “breathed” and shifted in the wind as if it was alive, but was stationary among the flock. The sun traveling through the day provided unique lighting through the wool, reminding one of light filtering through the lacy leaves of the forest nearby and the delicate design of Polynesian and Maori art. Subsequently, the transitional sculpture has shifted with the winter winds on the exposed hillside and currently resembles a structural carcass decomposing into the ground. Process is an important part of my art and every morning as I worked in the field with sheep surrounding me I was informed by their interaction with the landscape."

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"I pick plants from the fields surrounding the studio and cast them into limestone and sand, materials from our Vermont soils. This act of memorializing the fields (or even a season, if one could do that), of trying to keep the plant’s natural form, then set the field on a pedestal (much like the horses and war heroes in most town and city centers), becomes an act of resistance from the studio. Even the resulting sculpture becomes a carbon sequestering monument, as limestone is part of the carbon cycle-in contrast to the environmentally detrimental hardscape of an urban center (cement and asphalt have a negative impact for the earth). The installation of the indigenous plants of a region will be like having a year round textural stone field, or woodland, in all of its natural abstraction of form. These white limestone memorials/monuments placed in the public sphere, in neighborhoods for example, that once were fields, will reference the long history of humanistic public memorials and monuments of war and community heroes, and honor the landscape that was lost due to human encroachment. It will put nature on a pedestal in an abstract, un-curated form, much like what we see in nature’s natural state. The context of the memorial/monument in a city hardscape melds culture and nature together in a site specific installation."

How to turn the charred beams of an historic barn into art? This was the question that Milliken and her collaborator poet laureate Chard deNiord posed to each other as they met near the site of a fire that destroyed an hundred year old dairy barn at Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, Vermont. After several minutes of staring at the beams that had been dragged out of the collapsed barn, Milliken and deNiord settled on the idea of creating an evocative epitaph for the barn— something that both memorialized and elegized the destroyed landmark. deNiord suggested that he and Milliken think about the biblical phrase, "Let the dead bury the dead" as a starting point, acknowledging the futility and even irreverence of trying to create something transformative out of incinerated rafters. Milliken and deNiord then went their separate ways for several weeks in their mutual efforts to find respectful expressions that deferred to the barn's remains speaking for themselves as ruined yet iconic objects. Milliken took the first initiative by removing her hand from her memorial by allowing one of the beams, a synecdoche for the entire barn, to speak for itself as a drag mark on a linen shroud laid out on the field near the site of the former barn. deNiord followed by writing a poem that attempted to do justice to the mark it left.

Printing is mark making with pressure, the use of a matrix to impress information on a substrate. Environmentally and socially themed bricks were made collaboratively with farmers, poets, artisans, interns, and the community of Deerfield Academy (above). The process was one of discovery, setting up situations to happen without knowing the outcome. What words would the Deerfield community submit in response to the question “What do you pledge to the earth?” This open method of a sense of wonder is an important approach to be treated with the utmost care and respect in the studio.

Nancy Winship Milliken         maintains a place-based environmental art studio committed to building community through collaborative expressions of reverence for the land, humans, and animals. The artist creates sculpture, installations, prints and photographic enactments concerning the health of the land and surrounding communities, aiding in the desired change for the (socio) environmental course of our society. The practice of her studio is as much about process as it is about object. From finding and harvesting bioregional materials, to molding, weaving, burning into form, our hands and senses “know” the material intimately. The different smells, textures, and raw sensation of making the form is all a part of informing the outcome of the work. For the outside work, once the sculptures are installed, there is a letting go, a handing off of the process to the environmental influences the landscape. The sculptures record the sun, rain, heat and cold, even air pollution in their materials creating a living journal of the elements of the environment. A history of wind. A visualization of time. Her studio is committed to using an artistic platform as an expression of  environmental, climate and social change through engagement in community, collaborations, and mentoring creative environmental leaders. This is an open studio inviting artisans, poets, environmentalists, builders, students and farmers, to work together in response to the landscape, people and animals surrounding us. The studio strives to use sustainable and re-claimed materials, often re-using cast off materials from cultural usage or past installations. Milliken received her Masters of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Arts and Design in 2008, and her Bachelors of Science at University of Vermont in 1984. nancywinshipmillikenstudio.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©Nancy Winship Milliken, Tika Whare (True Home), 2013, bamboo, silage netting, raw wool, 14 x 9 x 8.5 feet, collaborators Truebridge Family, Turangi, New Zealand; Limestone Field Series, 2021-present, StoneField, 2022, 4 x 4 feet, feld plants, limestone, steel; Ribbon, Epitaph for a Barn, 2018, raw canvas, charcoal, 20 x 5 feet, collaborator Chard deNiord, Shelburne Farms, Vermont; Earth Press Project, Pledge, 2019,earth, steel, 7 x 7 x 5 feet, Von Auersperg Gallery, Deerfield Academy, Massachusetts, collaborators Reflex Letterpress, Terra Collaborative, Chard deNiord; Pasture Song, 2018-2022, post and beam charred timber, netting and horse hair (re-claimed cello bow hair), 15 x 17 x 1.5 feet, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Portrait of the artist walking in her studio field in Vermont. All images courtesy of the artist.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

January 1, 2024

This week we recognize  Leah Mata Fragua,  Leah Mata Fragua, a yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini Chumash artist/scholar  working in place based art, exploring the intersections of environment and social justice.

"My artistic evolution has led me to explore the ephemeral, where the intent of my work is not meant to last forever but rather exists in transient moments and challenges our own perception of time and mortality. As a placed-based artist, I am deeply rooted in the ancestral lands of the yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini (Northern Chumash) tribe along the California Central Coast. My mission is to create ephemeral works that honor my community’s values around sustainability practices while shedding light on pressing environmental issues. I believe that my work can serve as a platform for protecting cultural resources by bringing greater awareness to the environment where I collect my materials. In this respect, my work also provides a narrative about the importance of tribes in exercising our sovereign gathering rights."

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"Historically, my primary medium was abalone, chosen for its intrinsic link to specific landscapes. However, the climate emergency and subsequent regulatory restrictions have necessitated a shift in my material palette. This challenge led me to explore the art of papermaking. Integrating handmade paper into my practice not only allowed me to maintain a strong geographical connection in my work but also opened new avenues for artistic expression. The process of papermaking, from pulp preparation to the final pressing, has become a metaphor for regeneration and sustainability in the face of environmental challenges. It represents a new chapter in my artistic journey, one that blends with my environmental ethos."

"In terms of subject matter, my pieces often depict landscapes on the brink of change, capturing the fleeting moments of natural beauty and cultural significance. Through my art, I work to transport viewers to these places, making the distant and abstract tangibly immediate. The integration of place-based details is meticulous, creating an immersive experience that not only showcases the beauty of these landscapes but also serves as a clarion call for their protection."

"In my recent research, I explore the intersections of art, environmental science, and community engagement, using papermaking as a tool to delve into themes of sustainability, cultural identity, and ecological consciousness. This exploration is more than an artistic endeavor; it's a commitment to deepening our collective understanding of our relationship with the natural world and inspiring action towards its stewardship."

Leah Mata Fragua      is an artist, educator, and member of the yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini (Northern Chumash) tribe located on the Central California Coast. As a place-based artist, Leah’s kincentric approach seamlessly blends shared iconography with personal imagery, highlighting the impact each has on the other. She uses a diverse range of materials, from synthetic to organic, placed based to modern, to explore the interconnectedness and dependence between land, kinships, and self. She understands that her art is a reflection of the way she prioritizes the protection of traditional materials and the continuation of art forms that are important to her community, which intersect with her individual practice. Fragua is an adjunct professor in the Indigenous Liberal Studies department at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She travels between New Mexico and California, maintaining close ties to her tribal community and ancestral homelands. Her award-winning work is included in many public and private collections internationally. She was also honored with a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in 2011. She was selected as a Master Artist recipient for the Alliance of California Traditional Arts (ACTA) in 2013 and, most recently, the 2020 Barbra Dobkin Fellowship at the School of Advanced Research. Her education includes a B.A. in Anthropology and an M.A. in Cultural Sustainability from Goucher College, and she is currently completing her MFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts. www.leahmata.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©Leah Mate Fragua, New Cultural Resources (Detail), Northern Chumash, 2017, elk hide, oil, strows, plastic bags, pop lids, 5 feet, 5 inches; California poppies, 2023, handmade with abica plup, chamisa and madder root; Dentalium and Abalone Choker Necklace; Lepo Lepo, 2023, cottonwood bark, willow bark, and cotton, included in The Iridescence of Knowing at Oxy Arts; Traditional Northern Chumash dress with contemporary twist embellished with 50 meticulously cut abalone shells, each shaped like a water droplet; Self-portrait of the artist in her studio.

January 2024 e-Newsletter for subscribers is here

Mosses and Marshes, artist while recording audio, photograph, 2020

Hearing Held and Nurtured Nature: Kim Goldsmith's Multi-Media Work

Interview by Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein

Bringing nature bathing to new heights, Kim V. Goldsmith constructs video, soundscape and written work that integrate the natural world through contemplative, socially-engaged media. Research and process driven, Kim’s work sits at the meeting point of natural beauty and human intervention. Between technological assets and the wildest landscapes, Kim expands on her work below. She is also the founder of eco-pulse art.

Exploring Places That Vibrate, digital audio-video (click image)

What strikes me about your multimedia pieces is the way that you present stable objects in motion. What parallels do you place between motion and the land?

In my opinion: nothing is stable. Everything is in motion regardless of whether we feel it, see it or hear it. Our rapidly changing climate has sped up that motion in many ways, and whether it’s the dramatic changes that come with floods, droughts, and fire—or just the progression of time—lands and bodies of water, and everything they sustain, is constantly changing.

It seems like you celebrate in this works such as “Pulse of the Wetland” and “Mosses and Marshes.” These collaborations explore the interconnectivity between the changing climate, surrounding community, and ecological resilience. How were you able to bridge narratives across communicative methods through collaboration?

The broader ‘Mosses and Marshes’ project, of which ‘Pulse of the Wetland’ was my part of the project, was an international collaboration with UK artist, Andrew Howe between 2019-2022, exploring the future of Ramsar-listed wetlands in our respective countries. Our process on this project emerged as the project developed but was defined by asking a lot of questions about the issues facing these landscapes and the communities that are shaped by them—including challenging our own biases and assumptions; creating relationships with a wide range of knowledge specialists—from scientists and land managers to traditional owners; then applying our artform preferences to exploring and presenting the information, largely as provocations. The public programming around our work was a really important component of the work that brought ‘outsiders’ into the conversation to consider the issues raised from different perspectives, which showed us that while UK and Australian inland wetlands are vastly different, they also face many common issues. To do this we guided soundwalks, held an international panel event, gathered audio stories, and published a book.

Mosses and Marshes, video soundscape, 2021 (click image)

What an incredible process to engage the public and realize common struggles. What can audio work achieve uniquely in your goals of “capturing deep connections and hidden layers?

Humans tend to hear but not really listen. We’re often reactive rather than reflective, switching off once we’re familiar with something. By bringing subsurface sounds to the surface, I can make the familiar, unfamiliar. This often breaks that reactive listening cycle long enough to have a conversation about active and deep listening that create those deep connections. When practiced, those connections deepen even further, and you can start to tap into those hidden layers without the need for technological assistance.

‘Inhalare/ breathe upon’ was a project that was very much about our restricted movement during COVID lockdowns and getting to know local environments better during this time, but it’s also centered on the idea of making the natural world more accessible to everyone. Through taking a written, sound, and visual approach to celebrating these places, we were able to give multiple connection points to the six environments chosen by the artists. In my case, it was the pine forest on my property. They’re also often underappreciated and overlooked places that many don’t take the time to explore and understand. Celebrating the signature sounds of the pine forest brought them into focus in a way most will not have taken the time to notice.

Inhalare/Breathe Upon, time lapse video with contact mic recordings, 2020-21 (click image)

Celebrating the signature sounds of the natural world with “Inhalare” reminds me of acoustic-ecology. As a person who is deeply connected to the environmental landscape and many rural communities, what are your experiences related to man-made noise?

Loud, man-made noise drives me nuts! I live in a peri-urban area a few kilometres outside a major regional city, where people believe it’s their right to make as much noise as they want. Dirt bikes, chainsaws, revving cars, lawn mowers and the pumped-up bass on sound systems are all features of the after work/ weekend soundscape—often drowning out beautiful native bird song, frog song, and wind in the trees. I also live within kilometres of a major inland rail line and regional airport, so those feature in my local soundscape too. All this said, it doesn’t mean that man-made noise is all bad—the sound of our footsteps on fallen leaves or dry grass isn’t going to dramatically alter other elements of that soundscape. We are, after all, part of the environments we live in. It’s just about moderation.

There’s growing awareness of the health impacts of constant ‘noise’ and I believe urban sound design will become increasingly important as our cities continue to grow. The need to house more people in medium and high-density spaces will require the use of sound impedance measures and green spaces to dampen sound. Allowing communities in these areas to have a say about what soundscapes they want to live within and engage with should be a key consideration in the planning of cities now and in future.

Sonic Byte-Wingham Brush Boardwalk, narrative audio walk, NSW Regional Futures project residency, 2022 (click image)

The connection between designed spaces and your work is very clear! I am thinking especially about the work you created in Skye. Reading your passages, I feel like I am on a journey with you. What do you consider while choosing how to share your contemplative journey so vividly with a reader, such as myself?

The writing I did during my residency on the Isle of Skye in August/September was about creating a more experiential and immersive experience of being in the natural world, that’s accessible to everyone. For some, access is about not being able to hear soundscapes, to see landscapes, or to be mobile enough to move freely through a territory. This project is called ‘The Sonic Language of (Lost) Landscapes' and it came off the back of trying to make sound more accessible to d/Deaf people or those who are hard of hearing, should they wish to engage with it. I have people with hearing loss in my own family, who can’t enjoy some of the soundscape compositions I’ve created over the years, as some of the frequencies are out of their range. I also have this fear of losing my hearing as I age. I’ve noticed that many of the best nature writers, some of whom I greatly admire, often don’t describe sound well or they use descriptions that only those who can or were once able to hear could relate to. While sound doesn’t always have to be centre stage, it makes writing about the natural world so much richer, particularly when you start to explore sub-surface worlds.

View From My Window, photograph, (Arts) Territory Exchange, 2017-19

And you are opening this journey by exploring agroecology artist residency options. What have you discovered so far?

Yes, I’ve been doing a feasibility study for the ‘SOIL+AiR: creative future landscapes project’. It’s a multidisciplinary, artist-on-farms residency program. Held as a co-led, on-farm creative exploration of land management and agroecology issues impacting the future of secure food and fibre production, and the need for cultural adaptation for us to adapt, survive and thrive in changing environments. It’s designed to be an active partnership between the creative and the farmer, as well as engaging local communities and consumers to better understand the environment in which foods and fibres are produced. I’m wanting it to be more than just awareness raising though, but bring new voices to the conversation, offer different perspectives, immersive experiences, potential solutions, and provide a way for people to act.

Following many conversations here in Australia, and in the UK while I was there recently, a small pilot residency project is now being developed, with the hope they'll be more artists and farmers involved in future. Eventually we’ll bring all the participants together to share the outcomes on an international stage. For me, it’s exciting to see my interests and experience in rural industry, natural resource management and the arts all coming together in a way that engages others and offers hope for the future.

Thank you, Kim! I think it may be time for a walk in the forest after such an inspiring interview.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

December 25, 2023

This week we recognize Art-in-Nature artist  NILS-UDO  NILS-UDO and        his decades-long practice creating site works with natural materials, as well as his current painting practice.

A passage by the artist to describe "THE NEST," 1978 (above), including rocks, birch trees, and grasses, made in Germany:

"I smelled the earth, the stones, the freshly struck wood. I built the nest walls high and twisted the soil of the nest. From the height of the edge of the nest I looked down on the forest soil, up into the branch work of the trees and into the sky. I heard the singing of the birds and felt the breath of the wind. In the dawn I began to freeze. The nest was not finished yet. I thought, high above on the edge of the nest squatting: I build myself a house, it sinks silently past the tops of the trees on the forest soil, openly to the cold night sky and nevertheless warmly and softly, deeply into the dark earth dug." 

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In 1998, NILS-UDO was invited to create an outdoor site installation in the Santa Monica Mountains, in Topanga Canyon (Los Angeles County, California), off Old Topanga Canyon Road in Red Rock Canyon Park. The artist chose a cave where he assembled one of his signature nests for this iteration, made with Arundo donax, a lesser bamboo that grows along Topanga Creek. Considered an invasive species, great care was taken to remove the work after several days. Visitors to the cave were taken by surprise, then learned about his site works made around the world and became protectors of the work until it was removed. Some local residents even made a daily pilgrimage. The off-site work was included in the exhibition Art & Nature, curated by Patricia Watts for Julie Rico Gallery, Santa Monica.

"Nature becomes a platform on which the artist layers a discourse of human intervention in relation to the scale and dimensionality of landscape as well as the life forms therein. A sense of the ephemerality of life is inscribed onto the landscape in these ever-changing artworks. We see his work in documents, photos, and catalogues more often than we will see them in reality, and their ephemerality is an omnipresent theme—nature plays the central role, with the artist as intervenor, someone who sensitizes viewers to their links to nature." John Grande

NILS-UDO began as a painter in the 1960s before creating his site-specific works in nature. He continued to paint until 1980, then focused exclusively on his nature installations until 2004, when he returned to painting as well. For the last twenty years, he has made dozens of paintings from memory and photographs. And, though most of his work has been made in and with nature, the artist considers his photographs as the primary artwork. He learned photography out of necessity to document his site work.

HABITATS is an installation created in 2022 (below) in the heart of Champagne, France, at Taissy Vineyards. As part of the countdown to the Vineyard's 300th anniversary in 2029, they commissioned the artist to create a work that would highlight the links between humans and nature, and to promote biodiversity. The installation sculptures, or nests, are made with vines and branches extracted from the vineyard to give them a bocage appearance (hedged fields). Oak trunks found in the surrounding area during forest maintenance operations form the bases of the sculptures, and young pines from regeneration work carried out in the neighboring Montbré forest are used for the branches. The artist’s ultimate dream? That birds nest there. That the bees take their place in the small holes dug in the trunk to make room for them... "Let the squirrels, caterpillars, butterflies, ladybugs... follow."

NILS-UDO       (born 1937) is a German artist from Bavaria who has been creating environmental art since the 1960s, when he moved away from painting and the studio and began to work with and in nature. He began in the 1960s as a painter on traditional surfaces in Paris, but moved to his home country of Bavaria and started to plant creations, putting them in Nature's hands to develop and eventually disappear. As his work became more ephemeral, the artist introduced photography as part of his art to document and share it. Perhaps the best-known example of his work for the general public is the cover design for Peter Gabriel's OVO. The artist seeks to offer a mutualist vision wherein nature as environment is an omnipresent backdrop. In revealing the diversity in a specific environment, he establishes links between human and natural history, between nature and humanity that are always there yet seldom recognized. NILS-UDO uses natural materials, such as sticks, petals, and branches, to create site-specific installations. www.nils-udo.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©NILS-UDO,      THE NEST, 1978, rocks, Birch trees, grasses, made in Germany, photo documentation; Red Rock Nest, site-specific installation in Topanga Canyon, California, off-site work included in exhibition Art & Nature at Julie Rico Gallery, Santa Monica, California, January-February 1998, photo documentation; Small Lakeearth, 2000, water, Hazel stakes, Butterly Orchids, old leaves, made in France, photo documentation; Painting 1058, 2015, oil on canvas; Habitats, 2022, oak trees, pine trees, grapevines, at Taissy Vineyard, Campaigne, France, photo documentation; Portrait of the artist at Taissy Vineyard.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

December 11, 2023

This week we recognize artist  John Roloff John Roloff  and    his decades-long investigation of geologic time, sites, and other natural phenomena that began in the late 1960’s, combining poetics and site-specific relationships between material, concept and performance in the domains of ecology, architecture, ceramics, industry, metabolic systems and history.

Fired and Glazed Earth Piece, 1979 (above) is the first larger environmental performance/ kiln work after a series of smaller experimental kilns and firing projects. This work had two stages, the first of purely firing the existing earth in-situ. The second state, is after a second firing and the layered placement of all powdered glaze materials available at the Notre Dame ceramic facility were fused in-situ. In both cases the burner was placed in one end of the kiln, and left to reach a unknown temperature, the purpose being to let the kiln dynamics and natural forces (to the extent possible) determine the state of fusion of the materials, not a pre-determined formula or goal.The work also related to the earthworks projects done by artists of the 1960's and 1970's. Echoing volcanic processes, such as contact metamorphism where a heat source (plutonic intrusion, lava flow, etc) would come into contact with the surrounding native rock and create an altered zone of materials, potential metamorphic facies change in minerology as well as color and texture. The illumination of the ceramic fiber blanket by the heat of the firing, sustaining the kilns ship form at night, became important in developing the spectacle/kiln image dynamic of later projects.

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Fragment: The Hidden Sea (Island of Refuge), 1993 (above) is a 35 foot long "artificial" sectioned rock outcrop whose polished front facade is activated by intermittent and distributed seepages of water. An illusion of the art work is that the water is flowing "uphill." The main structure is set into a series of wave-like grass berms, the berms and structure provide sitting and relaxing space for the students of the surrounding housing complex.

"Fragment..." An assemblage of geologic materials and concepts adrift as if broken from a larger system floating in what is a geologically complex and fragmented terrain as in the Franciscan and Great Valley rock sequences that make up much of Western California. These ‘suspect terrains,’ are geologic progressions of ancient sea floor deposited against the original North American continent by accretion processes generated by plate tectonics and oceanic sea-floor spreading over millions of years.

"...(Island of Refuge)" An interactive topography: an ‘outcrop’ sited in a communal terrain, berms for relaxing and reading, the back slope for viewing activities on the adjacent grass expanse, the slow drip of the front facade inviting investigation of its origin and secrets.

"...The Hidden Sea..." A sea that resides in the memory of all sediments deposited in marine and estuarine environments. A sea that once lapped shorelines, that can now only be imagined. A sea that exists within the vast expanses of stratified material making up sedimentary landscapes, its currents and subtle subcurrents persisting in the orientation and gradients of minute lithified particles that drifted and settled to the bottom of the deep oceans. The variable seepage of water from the front facade of Fragment: The Hidden Sea (Island of Refuge) provides a living reminder of these themes, dampening the fossil-like inclusions and waveform strata.

Stratigraphic Column I,    2002  (above) is composed of alternating images taken of Cambrian and Ordovician Era carbonate marine sediments from the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley, California and contemporary buildings (Holocene era) in the process of being deconstructed or having undergone conflagration in northern California. The images have been digitally stretched to form strata-like structures that recompose the column into a sequence of non-conformities and displacement in geologic time and distance. This meta-order examines an intermingling of Holocene and Paleozoic structures over 300 million years and 500 miles (800 kilometers) apart. The geographic displacement from Death Valley to Oakland is on the scale of plate tectonics or large strike/slip or transform fault systems such as the San Andreas Fault in western California. The practice of architecture often brings together materials from even greater distances and time frames for aesthetic, design or structural reasons.

Protogaea Civica II (Franciscan Formation/San Francisco, CA), 2005 (above) is the second and largest of three variations of the Geology Flag Project, a system of symbolic demarcation of site-specific geologic structures and materials using flags. This version uses 19 flag poles at the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza. The flags emblematically identify the Civic Center’s site in relationship to the Franciscan Formation, the bedrock beneath the larger Bay Area, east of the San Andreas Fault. The Civic Center, in geologic terms, rests unconformably (a time gap in deposition) on part of the Franciscan called the Alcatraz Terrane, near its western edge. The complete set of flags are envisioned as a comprehensive system of geo-taxonomy, an indexing and revealing of the geologic materials and structures beneath any given site, and, as flags flying above civic sites, such as the San Francisco Civic Center, staking a claim for the “nationhood” of nature and natural systems. The flags are political, national and regional history flags.

The Sea Within the Land, 1980-2019 (below) are images from Roloff's retrospective exhibition at Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco, presenting selected kiln documentation, photographic installations, and recent ceramic ships. Utilizing a cross-disciplinary approach to ceramics and performance, his work incorporates the earth and life sciences with architectural and historical elements. The exhibition incorporated a view of the landscape where, in the context of geologic time, the land and sea are mutable, interdependent and may be construed as forms of each other. The processes of erosion and deposition being cyclical inversions of each other, a continuum of land and sea interaction through which new land is constantly being formed. In this fundamental way, land/seascapes are constructed of previous land/seascapes each carrying the blueprint of their ancestor.

John Roloff      is a visual artist who works conceptually with site, process and natural systems. He is known for his ceramic works and outdoor kiln/furnace projects done from the 1970’s into the 1990’s, as well as other large-scale environmental projects, gallery installations and objects investigating geologic and natural phenomena. Based on an extensive background and ongoing research in the earth sciences, he works from geochemical and global metabolic perspectives. The ship is a central image of his work, metaphorically evoking psychological and transformative processes of the sea and land in geologic and contemporary time. He studied geology at UC Davis, Davis, CA with Professor Eldridge Moores and others during the formative days of plate tectonics in the late-1960’s. He studied with Louis Marak and received a master’s degree in art in 1973 from CSU Humboldt. In addition to numerous environmental, site-specific installations in the US, Canada and Europe, his work has been included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, UC Berkeley Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution, Photoscene Cologne and the Venice Architectural and Art Biennales, The Snow Show in Kemi, Finland and Artlantic: wonder, Atlantic City, New Jersey. Art works in the public realm that explore geologic and related concepts can be found at sites such as: Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco, CA, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, I-5 Colonnade Park, Seattle, WA and Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. He has received three artist’s visual arts fellowships from the NEA, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, a California Arts Council grant for visual artists and a Bernard Osher Fellowship at the Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA. He is Professor Emeritus of Sculpture/Ceramics at the San Francisco Art Institute. www.johnroloff.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©John Roloff, Fired and Glazed Earth Piece, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN / 1979, images: Pre-fireing, 12 ft long, fire brick, ceramic fiber blanket, metal tubing, burner, propane, earth and 12 ft long, fire brick, fused and glazed earth beneath kiln / second firing of kiln; Fragment: The Hidden Sea (Island of Refuge) is a35 ft. long, cement, artificial stone, timed water-seepage system, roses, landscaping, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 1993;Stratigraphic Column I, 2002, an extension of Roloff's Landscape Projection (for an Unknown Window) series, 1998-2001;Protogaea Civica II (Franciscan Formation/San Francisco, CA) 2005, 19 flag poles at the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza as part of the 2005, part of the exhibition, High Five, presented in conjunction with the opening of the new DeYoung Art Museum in Golden Gate Park;The Sea Within the Land 1980-2019; Portrait of the artist.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

December 4, 2023

This week we recognize artist  Felicia Young, and  her collaborative community-based projects to address environmental challenges through the arts, as the founder of  Earth Celebrations, a non-profit organization established in 1991.

Young created the Trash Monster for Earth Day in 1990 (above), a 50-foot long dragon covered in soda cans, plastics bottles, and a tail of discarded New York Times papers. Volunteers from throughout the city collected cans for the monster and helped in its creation over several weeks. It was also featured in the Earth Day Parade at One World Trade Center 1992-1995. Volunteers operated the dragon by walking under the heaps of trash, their heads popping out like vertebrae. At the end of the parade the volunteers emerged and slayed the dragon, cutting off the cans, plastic bottles and paper tail. It was then separated in the ritual of recycling and offered to the We Can Recycling Center for recycling.

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The Rites of Spring, Procession to Save Our Gardens, 1991-2005 (above) was a collaborative art and environmental action project directed by Young, to build a community effort to preserve the gardens on the Lower East Side that were threatened with destruction by proposed development plans.Over many months local residents participated in workshops to create visual art, giant puppets, and performances of music, dance, theater and poetry, presented in a culminating day-long procession to Save Our Gardens, visiting the network of over 50 community gardens. The procession grew into an ongoing program with the founding of Earth Celebrations, dedicated to engaging communities to generate ecological change through the arts. The project continued for fifteen years with annual pageants, community art-making workshops and a grassroots coalition effort that led to the preservation of hundreds community gardens throughout New York City.

Earth Celebrations’ Hudson River Restoration Project & Pageant, 2009-2012 (above) engaged residents, youth, students, schools and local river, environmental, cultural and community organizations in a collaborative arts and action project on restoration efforts of the Hudson River Estuary and impacts of climate on the waterfront in Lower Manhattan. Months of workshops engaged residents, youth, schools, community centers and organizations to collaborate with Earth Celebrations’ artists-in-residence and environmental experts exploring the waterfront sites and their related environmental programs and climate mitigation initiatives. Workshops culminated in a co-created theatrical pageant, featuring a 5 hour procession of visual art, giant puppets and costumes with 13 site performances celebrating the restoration initiatives along the downtown section of the Hudson River Park. Oyster planting, marine labs, native river grass, species of plants and animals, and boating programs were celebrated while addressing sea level rise, flooding and climate challenges impacting the waterfront.

The Vaigai River Restoration Pageant & Project, 2014-2016 (above) was a social action art initiative and an international collaborative effort to restore the Vaigai River in Madurai, South India. The River was in a severe environmental crisis due to pollution, waste dumping, and the drying effects of extreme climate. The project applied the arts to mobilize community action and build partnerships among diverse groups and people throughout the city, working together to develop and implement solutions. Young activated cultural strategies and methodology to engage diverse sectors throughout the City, to work collaboratively, exploring how pollution and climate are impacting the river. Over 50 partners throughout the city including local organizations worked on critical environmental and health programs, rural and urban neighborhood associations, religious centers, women’s empowerment groups, academic and cultural institutions, government officials, farmers and people living in poverty along the riverbank. Research and data were then interpreted by community participants into visual art and performances for a culminating public Vaigai River Restoration Pageant on May 12, 2015. A procession of giant mobile sculptures, spectacular costumes, and musical bands with performances at significant sites along the route followed the river bank. The project catalyzed on-going engagement and actions with river clean ups, and the Vaigai River Restoration Trust was established along with an official panel appointed by the Mayor of Madurai. In 2018, Madurai was identified by the Smart Cities Council of India to receive 1 billion rupees for the Vaigai River Restoration implementation.

Earth Celebrations’ Ecological City - Art & Climate Solutions Action Project, 2017 - present (below) applies the arts to build community, collaboration and action on climate solution initiatives to mitigate climate change including impacts of flooding, carbon pollution and the consequences of sea-level rise throughout the network of community gardens, neighborhood and waterfront on the Lower East Side of New York City. Gardeners, artists, residents, youth and over 50 community partner organizations collaborate through 9 months of creative engagement, partnership building, and Art & Climate Solutions Workshops, to develop visual art and performances exploring local sustainability sites and their climate solution initiatives. The community presents their inspiring sustainable urban ecosystem and artistic works created through the workshops in the culminating Ecological City: Procession for Climate Solutions. The co-created theatrical pageant features a spectacular procession of visual art with 21 site performances of dance, theater, music and poetry, celebrating local climate solutions embedded throughout the neighborhood. Ecological City provides an inspiring creative, collaborative and public platform to amplify and build action on local environmental challenges and solutions.

Felicia Young   is an artist and the Founder and Executive Director of Earth Celebrations, a non-profit organization since 1991, engaging communities to generate ecological and social change through the arts. For the past 32 years she has applied the arts to build community, collaboration and action on climate change, water quality, river restoration, waste management, and the preservation of species, habitats, nature, gardens, parks, and a healthy urban environment. Her collaborative arts projects build partnerships with organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and residents to work together to achieve common goals and ecological policy and social change. As a native 3rd generation New Yorker, Young has deep roots in the City of New York, as well as much inspiration from the festivals, ceremonies, and mythic dramas from her mother’s native land of India. Young has also developed a course "Art, Ecology and Community," for Princeton University. She shares these cultural strategies as a guest speaker on urban sustainability and artistic activism at numerous schools and colleges including New York University, Columbia University, School of Visual Arts, New School/Parsons and Hunter College. Young has BA in Art History from Skidmore College and a MA degree in Performance Studies from New York University.  earthcelebrations.com

Featured images (top to bottom): ©Felicia Young, Trash Monster: Create, Parade & Recycle, 1990-1995, also performed Earth Day New York & World Trade Trade Center, LMCC, 1992-1995; Hudson River Restoration Pageant, 2008-2012, downtown section of the Hudson River Park, Lower Manhattan, World Financial Center to Gansevoort Street; Vaigai River Restoration Pageant & Project (2014-2016), Madurai, South India; Ecological City, Art & Climate Solutions Action Project, 2018-Present, Lower East Side, New York City, Gardens to Waterfront; portrait of the artist.