Seeing Green: Art, Ecology, and Activism in Milwaukee

Call for Work: Wormfarm Institute – reintegrating culture and agriculture

Re-enchantment of Agriculture
Project #2 Edible Ephemeral Art: Veggie Mosaics

This performance art project will be a public celebration of art and agriculture that will partner a mosaic artist and a chef at selected weekly farmers markets through the 8-week height of the growing season August – September.

The featured artist and an assistant who will involve the public will assemble a mosaic made from sliced veggies from the market vendors into a work of art. Artist will have a rendering of proposed work so that shoppers (and children) can help realize the artist’s vision. There will be plenty of room for inspiration and improvisation and artists will be selected with this community involvement goal in mind. The image may be a variation on a well-known classic or an original design.

When the work is complete, it will be paraded around as the chef prepares the wok or grill. It will then be ritually poured into chef’s vessel much as Tibetan Buddhist Monks pour a sand mandala on which they have worked for weeks into the river. A meditation on impermanence, the visual art becomes culinary art and samples are given away.

Chefs will know in advance what veggies will be available and have a recipe and preparation in mind – again leaving room for inspiration and community input.

Humanities programming will be developed creating conversation about food as it relates to individual communities, neighborhoods and ethnic ties.

Tibetan monk finishing sand mandala

contact:
Wormfarm@jvlnet.com
http://www.wormfarminstitute.org
608 524-8672
608 415-0347

Photos from the Opening, 4/12/08 photos by Laura Klein

Link to a MKE story on Seeing Green

“Green and Bold: Art Pieces’ Powerful Statements Invoke Environmental Action” by Lilledeshan Bose.

http://www.mkeonline.com/story.asp?id=1403552

Surveillance Camera Birdhouses!

Colin Matthes’ surveillance camera birdhouse is now up. Matthes researched and designed a birdhouse suitable for birds in Wisconsin, constructed it out of wood, and placed it in a river corridor in Milwaukee. For birds, it serves as a perfect home for finches. For people who stumble upon it while walking down the path through the woods, the sight of the surveillance camera mounted to a tree is completely unexpected and raises a myriad of questions about the priorities people place on property, competition and issues of fear and security that dominate city living. The fact that the menacing form of the surveillance camera is humbled and made into a home for finches only serves to further subvert the camera’s original connotation and adds to the surprise of encountering Matthes’ public intervention.