Putting the PARK Back into Parking

What if you tried to pull your car into a parking space and there was a park in it?

Photo by ekai

Zen garden made from reclaimed materials

If REBAR, a San Francisco-based art collective, has anything to say about it, that should be a frequent occurrence. Beginning in 2005, the group has been organizing and promoting PARK(ing) Day, an annual “one-day, global event where artists, activists, and citizens collaborate to temporarily transform parking spots into PARK(ing) spaces: temporary public parks.” Ready to see something more than rows of cars lining your own city’s streets? You, too, can create a PARK for PARK(ing) Day 2008, September 19, which, like last year’s event, is cosponsored by the Trust for Public Land.

All in all, 2008 promises to be an especially big year for REBAR, as it has been invited to participate in the eleventh Venice Architecture Biennale.

Accessible Buried Treasure

Many pieces and projects in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts current exhibitions reference the environment in some way, but one with a particularly strong environmental focus is Buried Treasure Island, part of the Ground Scores show.

Photo by Lauren Anderson

The work, by BARGE (Bay Area Research Group in Enviro-aesthetics), is described as a “multi-platform investigation” that includes an “installation, guidebook, self-guided tour, audio podcast, songs, performative bus tour, staged actions and photographs.”  I found the project fascinating and creepy, and meaningful for anyone interested in the lingering environmental consequences of land use.  I highly recommend it (as well as YBCA’s current Bay Area Now 5 show) for anyone who will be in the Bay Area between now and October 18.

Animal Estates Up Close and Personal

As promised in my earlier post about Fritz Haeg’s Animal Estates, I did go to San Francisco MOMA to attend the workshop on the slender salamander. My question was answered. Led by Alice Wu and Moriah Carlson of the design collective Feral Childe, the workshop participants–virtually all kids—made salamander hoodies.

I wouldn’t say they made anyone look like a slender salamander, which is a tiny creature that looks like a worm with legs,

but they were pretty cute. And the talk by Michelle Koo of the California Academy of Sciences let everyone know about how easy it is to create an “estate” for these creatures: a plank of wood they can shelter under in a backyard is all they need. Still, to make them more artistic, many participants drew or painted fanciful salamanders on their estates.  There’s still one more animal estate workshop at SFMOMA on July 27, but it will be a little harder to make an estate for that client—the California sea lion—in your back yard.  Their habitat for much of the year is reclaimed boat piers at San Francisco’s Pier 39.

Curl up with a coral reef

Coral reefs: wet, hard (in places), living. Crocheted objects: fuzzy, soft, inanimate. So never the twain shall meet—right? Actually, sometimes you can hardly tell the difference.

"Crochet Coral and Anemone Garden" with sea slug by Marianne Midelburg. Photo by Alyssa Gorelick.

The top photo shows an actual reef. The bottom photo is a crocheted coral reef developed by The Institute for Figuring’s Crochet Coral Reef project as “a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.” Their concern is very timely. 2008 is the International Year of the Reef, and recently several new reports have indicated increased threats to coral reefs around the world. And their reef is nearly as spectacular as the real thing.

Telling the Story of Life and Humanity in Iran

Iran is a country with a pretty negative image in the U.S. press these days, so I was very intrigued when an Iranian-American artist friend recently sent me a link to an environmental art festival currently taking place there. In fact, the summer 2008 Iranian Environmental Art Festival, focusing on the water crisis and water pollution, is the 17^th such festival.

Environmental art is a very popular form in Iran, my friend told me, not only because of its inherent interest, but also because it is less subject to the government censorship that plagues art that is permanent or displayed in more populated places. According to festival director Ahmad Nadalian, “In the past two years there has been a great demand for environmental art in Iran.. . .I have been pleased to organize different events and respond to this essential need of our society. Environmental art is the art of the future. We can learn how to behave with nature. I wish in the future we could have one environmental art event per day.”

Machine in the Garden

Beginning in September 2007, artist Phil Ross and media arts developer Marina McDougall have been constructing an outdoor installation at the campus of the Oxbow School in Napa, California. Titled Machine in the Garden, this permanent installation is intended to reflect what the artists call “a philosophical and ideological conflict that has profoundly shaped the history of the American landscape and how we see it—the struggle between an industrialized environment and a bucolic, arcadian, countryside.”

Can we preserve the environment and still live in an industrialized world? How can art help us do this? Ross and McDougall hope their installation will provoke visitors to consider their relationships with nature, and since Ross himself has been described (by inhabitat.com) as “a one-man laboratory for geeky eco-art experiments,” the new installation seems likely to be engaging.

Final construction on Machine in the Garden is due to take place this summer.

Welcome to Connections

When the folks at Natural World Museum suggested that I write a blog, I was excited about the opportunity to contribute to NWM’s website. We spent some time talking about what the focus of the blog should be—information about ongoing projects, features about artists whose work brings the environment to the forefront, reviews of events, my personal thoughts about art and the environment, and so on. As I started doing a little research looking for topics, I realized that the common thread among all these possibilities was connection: not only the connection between art and the environment, which is at the heart of NWM’s mission, but connection of the website’s users to what is happening around the world at the art and environment nexus, and connection of users to NWM itself, through their ability to contribute their comments and information to the blog. And so the Connections blog was born.

Inevitably, the blog will be highly selective. The things I choose to write about here will be things that I’ve found particularly fascinating, intriguing, or meaningful. Perhaps things that raise more questions than they answer. If you agree or disagree, or have something to add to what I’ve said, please let me hear from you. If you have other topics to suggest for future posts, I’d love to hear about them.

The blog will appear occasionally, at unpredictable intervals, as I find things I think you’d like to know about. Think of this as an opportunity to be surprised with a new connection from time to time. But also think of it as a reason to check NWM’s site frequently, because you never know when you might find a way to connect. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Please let me know!
–Susan

Animal Estates: New Habitat in Old

Visitors to the 2008 Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial who happened to look up as they were entering might have been curious about the large bird nest perching above the museum’s entrance.
Was one of New York’s peregrine falcon pairs contributing to the year’s premier show of contemporary American art? No, but not far off.

The nest, 10 feet in diameter, is actually for bald eagles. It was built by Fritz Haeg, as part of his installation—or “development,” as he calls it—at the Biennial. New York was the first stop for Haeg’s Animal Estates, created dwellings for animals that have been unwelcome or displaced by humans. The dwellings will be tested around the world; in 2008, art institutions in seven cities have commissioned Animal Estates for exhibit.

To quote the Animal Estates website overview, “As animal habitats dwindle daily, Animal Estates proposes the reintroduction of animals back into our cities, strip malls, garages, office parks, freeways, front yards, parking lots, skyscrapers, and neighborhoods. Animal Estates intends to provide a provocative 21st century model for the human-animal relationship that is more intimate, visible and thoughtful.”

In each city, Haeg has chosen animals native to that area. For the Whitney show, he has created homes for twelve “animal clients” who lived at that very location (Madison Avenue and E. 75th Street) 400 years ago, when the spot was forest and marsh. The design for each estate will be developed with local zoological or ecological specialists. As Haeg writes, “These animals may at times be helpful and welcome residents, but others may require some getting used to.” Think bobcat or beaver.

Along with each Animal Estates installation will be Animal Lessons, animal-related classes, workshops, and seminars offered by Haeg’s Sundown Schoolhouse. This may include anything from animal movement workshops with choreographers and dancers to informative seminars by local zoologists, ethologists, and animal specialists. In San Francisco, for example, the four presentations will include building model homes for each animal that participants are then encouraged to place around the city. There will also be animal-related sound, movement, writing, and garment-making activities.

I’m excited about seeing the Animal Estates when they come to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (and I’m particularly curious about the garment-making activity: will I leave dressed as a salamander, or will salamanders get some new duds?). Habitat loss is one of the most critical environmental issues, but it’s often neglected in the current focus on carbon emissions. It’s heartening to see it getting this kind of attention. But I have to confess there’s a part of me that’s thinking “Is it art?” I’ll report here on my impressions once I’ve seen the show; I look forward to reading your thoughts also.