Terraforming in the Anthropocene
Recycled pipes, cement, found materials, led grow-lights, native and locally adapted vines + solar panels and rain catchment irrigation system
April-November 2018
A living public installation powered by renewable resources located at Grow Dat Youth Farm in New Orleans City Park with support from Fossil Free Festival and the Platforms Fund, regranting effort by Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Antenna Gallery and Pelican Bomb, with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation.
This installation explores what it means to live in an age of global warming, in Southern Louisiana in particular. The artwork uses found materials and living plants to form a habitat that might exist in the future, based on the remains from our current culture. The structure references the proliferation of oil pipelines already crisscrossing our ecosystems and the casual litter that passes through our lives but will remain on this planet far longer than we will.
With support from the Platforms Fund I was able to use the installation as a teaching tool to talk about renewable and non-renewable resources, connecting the artwork with the extraction and refining industries in Louisiana that make our landscape ever more vulnerable and creating a space to imagine solutions for changing course. These workshops culminated with hand paper-making from various renewable resources including recycled paper, bagasse, johnson grass and shredded plastic waste.
