Using a site inspired from in-class, or one you discover, create a proposal (artful situation) that addresses one of the following topics...
1) unmasking the relationship between humans and nature
2) an ecologically friendly solution for a local environmental issue (formally, aesthetically and practically).
3) an artwork that interacts with solar, water or other basic ecological process(es)/cycle(s).
4) a remediation or reclamation of a local or regional situation; or a more sustainable approach to a degradation or consumptive situation.
5) an interpretive artwork which refers to environmental history and interacts with its site.
6) an artwork that contributes to biodiversity.
There are 3 parts to this final assignment:
1. Proposal: consisting of drawings, detailed diagrams, maps of site, and a model of the finished idea. These are to be of size and format appropriate for presentation. OR You can create an actual piece on site or in situ.
2. Essay: this 8-10 page document will give the necessary background information on the site, the reasons for your choice of solution (theory, cultural values), and a description of the material and methodologies to be used in the execution of the piece. You will also briefly consider the possibilities for land acquisition (or permission), time line, community involvement (if applicable), and budget. Reduced copies of drawings, maps etc. from your proposal may be included for clarity or drawings or photographs of the actual piece, if you created a piece.
3. Presentation Your group will have up to 20 minutes to present your idea to the rest of the class. Be sure to allow a few minutes for questions and answers.
More Specifics about
Developing the Final Proposal or Project
Recapping the components necessary to create public art that is meaningful: we need....1) a forum, or site 2) an audience 3) a proposal with appropriate methodology given our individual talents. See below an abbreviated version of possible sites (from Lippards article); consider who would be the audience for each. Sites are:
1. Works
prepared for conventional indoor exhibition (installations, photography,
conceptual art and project proposals) eg.
2. Traditional outdoor public art (not plunk art), that draws attention to the specific characteristics or functions of the places where it intervenes, either in predictable locations like parks, bank plazas, museum gardens, and college campuses (mining memorial, Charles Simmonds, Maya Lins War Mem,,)
3. Site specific outdoor artworks, collaborative, that significantly involve the community in execution, background information, or ongoing function. (muralists, etc)
4. Permanent indoor public installations, often with some function in regard to the community’s history, such as post office murals across the country.
5. Performances or rituals outside of traditional art spaces that call attention to places and their histories and problems, or to a larger community of identity and experience. (street posters, stencils, stickers)
6. Art that functions for environmental awareness, improvement or reclamation by transforming wastelands, focusing on natural history, operating utilitarian sites, making parks, and cleaning up pollution. (Alan Sonfist)
7. Direct didactic political art that comments publicly on local or national issues, esp in the form of signage on transportation (buses), in parks, on buildings, by the road, which marks sites, events and invisitble histories (edgar Heap of Birds)
8. Portable public access radio, tv or print media such as audio and videotapes, postcards, comics, guides, manuals, artist’s books and posters. Aids quilt.
9. Actions and chain actions that travel, permeate whole towns or appear all over the country simultaneously to highlight or link current issues.
̃ Review the possibilites of final projects from the syllabus; consider in addition...
̃ Terrarium, Jeff lockwood in charge (766-4260); I have keys to room 4018 of Ag Bldg (on Prexis Pasture, beside education, I think). Insect Gallery (Cases) are in a series of shelves, which you can paint, and create a mini environment of some sort or even a model in it. Now: terrantula, cockroaches, water striders, crickets, millipedes, grasshoppers. Lighting is fluorescent. Kids are brought on tour here: its educational.
̃ cement plant, contact is Frank Plummer, 745-4879 ext. 21. This is an area that has various levels of surface ground manipulation that has been reclaimed and others that are in the process of ideas in the works: typical is returning wild grasses, a recreation park for employees, and latest is a wetland.
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̃ gravel quarry up on Grand, coal site in Hanna,
̃ local nuclear warhead sites (I have books). recycling efforts,
̃ solar or wind as sources of energy,
Environmental
Awareness - general issues within the community of