S.O.S. L-A-W-N Living Abundantly With Nature

 




 

#sosLAWN A black screen with sprinkle of water that seem like it was coming from a garden sprinkler. The video will be projected to a blank wall just above ground as if the actual water coming from an invisible water sprinkler. The water is not pure water but it was shot while the artist urinating, a comment on the politic of aesthetic value and territorial behavior of our society. Provoking the public to conserve water and may be rethink what the front lawn could be? Urine is consider a waste but it is pack with nutrients for the plants. Culturally it had may significant but artist had been exploring the medium on various platform. Andy Warhol had his friends piss on canvas laid on floor and titled it Oxidation Painting, 1978. Andres Serrano creates a scandal with Piss Christ, 1987 and Otto Muehl had to flee his country caused by his performance Pissaction, 1969. Next time when nature called, remember how powerful your waste is.

 

Today, we have 40,000 sq. miles of lawns. More than what we use for wheat, corn or tobacco
7 billion gallons of water per day for lawn irrigation
40 billion dollars on lawns
10 billion more on pesticides

only 2% of American Food is grown locally

 

 

"The American lawn uses more resources than any other agricultural industry
in the world. It uses more phosphates
than India, and puts on more poisons
than any other form of agriculture."

- Bill Mollison

 

L-A-W-N at Brooklyn Utopias
Curated by Katherine Gressel and Derek Denckla

September 16-December 12, 2010
Reception: Thursday, September 16, 2010 6-8pm

The Old Stone House, Washington Park / JJ Byrne Playground, 5th Ave. at 3rd St., Brooklyn NY 11215
Gallery Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 11am-4pm or by appointment


Featuring artwork by Andrew Casner, Hernani Dias, Kate Glicksberg, Katherine Gressel, Hugh Hayden, Kim Holleman, Christina Kelly, Jess Levey, Mary Mattingly, Eve Mosher, Scott Nyerges, ORPH, Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy, Dan Sagarin, Eric Sanderson, Tattfoo Tan, Work.AC**

 


 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Utopia: An ideal place or state.

What would a “Brooklyn Utopia” look like? What is the role of artists in shaping an ideal Brooklyn?

Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City invites artists to respond to urban agriculture, or the practice of farming in or around a city, as a “utopian” solution for Brooklyn. How successful are Brooklyn’s existing urban farming attempts and what additional innovations and collaborations are possible? How can the borough’s rich agrarian past inform its greener future? What about questions of scale, universal access, diversity and feasibility for urban farming that determine if this is a fad or a lasting practice in Brooklyn? And finally, how can the past, present and future of Brooklyn farming inform future “farm cities?"

To address such questions, the artworks in Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City will range from the symbolic and visionary to the literally alive and dirty. These include: sample plant modules from Eve Mosher's Seeding the City rooftop garden networking project, early drawings from Christina Kelly’s Maize Field project that harvests corn in Brooklyn streets; never-before shown plans and sketches by Mary Mattingly (of the Waterpod project and Flock House); a painting by Andrew Casner made from garden compost; a rendering of an idealized agrarian Brooklyn in year 2409 by Eric Sanderson, author of the best-selling Manahatta; and, during opening weekend, tours of actual mobile farms by Tatfoo Tan, Kim Holleman, and Ian Cheney & Curt Ellis.

The Old Stone House of Brooklyn is a modern reconstruction of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, a 1699 Dutch stone farmhouse that was the site of the largest battle of the Revolutionary War and the original home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Old Stone House is dedicated to creating a strong sense of community through history, environmental education and the arts. Please visit www.theoldstonehouse.org for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

Press:

Examiner.com
NYC arts: ‘Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City’ raises awareness of urban agriculture

Organization:

Food not Lawns