Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far, and my fellow eco-art list member, Liza, who lives in Edmunds, WA, biked all the way from her home to our island. I was very impressed. I love to bike, but in that kind of heat...whew. Wish I had photographed her arrival up our steep hill, but I was busy watering our thirsty permaculture-designed garden.
After dinner that included yummy greens with toasted hazelnuts & raspberries from our garden, we went to visit the site together, and she asked really great questions about the history of the site and our plans for the garden. What a lively mind!
Here's our proposal: Eden Reframed will be a community-based, interactive eco-art project on the site of the Beall Greenhouses on Vashon Island. Through art, permaculture design, bioremediation and community collaboration, this project will be a small part of the restoration process of a site that has been polluted by pesticides and heavy metals, and damaged by decades of dumping. The project will include sculptural elements such as remediation containers designed from used windshields and car parts and interactive altars made from other scavenged materials. We will invite the community to share stories about gardening and growing food, and the stories will be available for visitors to read on the altars. The sculptural pieces will be surrounded by a healing garden designed from native plants and trees.
Eden Reframed will offer the community a place to learn about the history of this damaged site, while it uses art to both sensually and intellectually to engage the audience with the eco-restoration process. It will be an interdisciplinary collaboration that merges cutting edge remediation techniques, community story telling, permaculture design and site-specific sculptures. It will herald the beginning of a much larger remediation project and open the door to more public art projects and community collaboration. It will have an international presence online offering the world a unique eco-art model of turning a toxic site into a flourishing and aesthetically engaging ecosystem.
Earlier in the day I spent a few more hours with the altar prototypes wrapping & wiring the armatures, drilling, screwing and sawing. Soon I'll have to collect some more art supplies in the woods. No shortage here.
I'll upload more photos tonight when I have more time.
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