"URBAN ECOLOGIES" 2021 exhibition opens at Santa Fe Railyard Park Earth Day 4/22
Urban ecologies at santa fe railyard park
Beginning Earth Day, April 22, 2021 Art Park 21 hosted its second biennial juried exhibition of outdoor eco-centric artworks: “Urban Ecologies” thanks to the partnership of the Santa Fe Railyard Park Conservancy and the Railyard Art Project committee.
Additional Information
This features the temporary siting of several works on the railyard park grounds. The installations have relevance to the environment of New Mexico and will be created by artists from the region. They make use of diverse media to evoke themes such as xeriscaping vs. green lawns; natural and cultural history of the site; botany; the effects of industry; water harvesting and use; economic value of nature; history of over-harvesting of forests.
Funding support for this project has been provided by the New Mexico Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and New Mexico Arts.
Infinite green by tlc collective
Infinite Green is a sculptural installation created with repurposed artificial grass and a reclaimed push lawn mower. What appears to be one very long strip of grass coils into two large rolls, creating an infinite loop of perfectly manicured green lawn. In the center of the two turf rolls, where the material passes from one roll to the next, sits a well-worn lawnmower, as if positioned on a hamster wheel. The material of artificial grass stirs connotations of idealized versions of natural beauty, and our culture’s tendency to plasticize what we love in order to make its beauty last, manipulating organic materials to make them more durable and impervious to death and decay. Infinite Green evolved from dialogues about what is ultimately sacrificed in an endless quest for the perfect lawn, the perfect home, and the perfect life in pursuit of romanticized versions of the American Dream. Is there a price too high, in financial or natural resources, to achieve picture-perfect curb appeal?
By Leticia Bajuyo, Tiffany Black, and
Christine Wilson
a drop of water by john davis
The ostensible function of this installation is to keep a small amount of water in a depression on the upper surface of a boulder. Adjacent to the boulder is a vertical construction which supports a small steel tank containing tap water and an open basin rain catchment. A solar panel provides power for a network of electrical devices – sensors, valves, actuators – that are managed by a microcontroller. Two ounces of water can be released from the catchment onto the boulder by the viewer by pressing a button on the Control Panel if rock is dry. On a regular schedule, a sensor mounted to the tap water tank will check the status of the pocket on the rock and if it is dry, it will activate the release of two ounces of water onto the rock. This work responds to environmental conditions and its construction makes use of salvage industrial materials as well as natural materials. These contrasting materials echo a theme of urban ecology – technology and biology intertwined..
rootwalk by hollis moore
A patch of Yerba Mansa, Anemopsis californica, planted within the community garden is the core of the multifaceted installation, Rootwalk, which honors relations between people and plants. The community garden is a space of nurturing; plants, community, and oneself; through symbiotic plant-human relations. Yerba Mansa will spread rhizomatically over the course of the installation, serving as a metaphor for sharing plant stories. The public may collect a zine/field guide from a library next to the Yerba Mansa patch. Dozens of community members contributed stories to the plant zine and their descriptions will prompt participants to meander through the park and learn the attributes of plant species. Flags, dyed with regional plants and printed with graphic symbols, will signal participants to various plants and the information in the zine/field guide. Over time the flags will decompose and emphasize the need to pass along plant stories, knowledge, and seeds before their meaning is lost. are.
industry by lance ryan mcgoldrick
INDUSTRY is a multi-media installation that fuses Art, Technology and Math. Contained inside the seemingly unaltered rusty water tank is a large-scale kaleidoscope, producing an illusion of a 3-D sphere. Incorporating coding, arduinos, LED’s, LCD monitor to produce the object cell, while geometry is used to create the illusion of 3 dimensional kaleidoscope. This installation does not mean to paint Industry in a negative light, it serves to encourage a dialogue on our societal values and norms. The juxtaposition of a “child’s toy” inside a mechanism of industry speaks to these values. Collectively we have lost our relationship with play, with Nature and discovery. Valuing industry over discovery, hard work over play, progress over the planet. After creating such a divisive and dangerous relationship with nature, how do we reflect, re-establish, and re-wild?
mushroom economics by richard lowenberg
A series of approximately 300 small colorful Amenita-like ceramic mushrooms will be produced to be sporadically and secretly placed under cover of night around selected Santa Fe Railyard Park grounds, on selected Spring 2021 dates. The mushrooms are to be found, foraged and kept by those who encounter them over following days, as a gift. The stems will be hollow, containing a removable paper message, asking for locative contact. A project website and interactive map will be created to geographically track the mushrooms’ mycorrhizal economic paths, as artful representation of our community’s fungible gift economy. A public “Art + Economics” workshop and discussion will also be scheduled, attempting to make visible and visceral, economic understandings and practices for how to balance our local economy, Earth’s economy, and for re-inhabiting the original Greek radical root word ‘oiconomia’: care of home.
Track the mushrooms journey across the globe or record your own mushroom’s location at https://myco-eco.art.
(not pictured)
How can public space be annotated to account for the complicated pasts and presents of the Santa Fe Railyard Park? With earth plinth signs, (not pictured) endeavors to make visible that which is “not pictured” in our dominant culture. The signs will encourage visitors to engage with the often overlooked layers of material and social presents, pasts, and futures of the park. Each of the five etched steel signs evoke the park’s permanent signs that tell part of the park’s story. The earthen plinths embody accounts of millennia of chemical change, soil degradation, layered histories, and riven and remade connections. The signs offer speculations in English, Spanish and another local language exploring multiple ways of being on this land of O’ghe P’oghe (aka Santa Fe), including a land acknowledgment which traces the colonial history of the railroad, its path of genocide across the so-called U.S., and the relationship of this settler park as land stolen from the Tewa people.re.
By nicholas b jacobsen,
Catherine Page Harris,
and bug carlson
(ALL FELLED)
In addition to the following text: I can read like a clock from here that my flesh and bones are somehow parceled with the bulging forests that surround us, I propose that I develop (with RAC final approval) two more text iterations. All three text installations can be staggered so that text related to the connections between humans and the forest will appear over several months. Additionally, to preserve the longevity of each text piece, each installation will be sprayed with an environmentally friendly fixative. The text will still be temporarily chalked into the boardwalk with solar-powered glow in the dark chalk made through collaborative efforts with schoolchildren from New Mexico whose family members have participated in the laying of railroads throughout the state.
By Paula Castillo
2019 abq ECO-ART INSTALLATIONS
"Archbarrow" by Joshua Willis
An archway made from wheelbarrows. This sculpture makes reference to classical Greek and Roman architecture and the common use of archways, emblematic of strength and elegance. This same sense of strength and elegance is paralleled in sustainable farming and gardening practice. The “Archbarrow” embodies the saying “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
"Cairn Trough" by John Davis
In the middle Rio Grande valley our history is tied to the river and we are able to live in an arid climate while enjoying the runoff from the mountains of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The river exemplifies our interconnectedness within this shared ecosphere – rain and snow from the mountains making their way to the sea where they will be cycled back i
"Corn Root Pole" by Matthew Chase-Daniel
The Corn Root Pole is related to my ongoing series of Pole Sculptures. These works elevate and revere ordinary natural materials by collecting them in quantity and raising them high for all to see. Each stalk is hand harvested, washed and dried.
"Leaf, Stone and Wind" by John Davis
Every breath connects us to our ecosphere and every gust of wind is a reminder of the forces and balances of nature. A wind vane gives us visual evidence of the changes in wind direction and heightens our awareness of this natural element.
This installation makes use of the wind to create a record of its time on the site while it also connects us to the actio
"We are all lichen: toward a resurgent symbiosis" by laura c carlson
Lichens are made of at least one algal or cyanobacterial partner in symbiosis with two fungal species. Human bodies are made up of more single-celled organisms than our own cells, introducing us to the possibility of being human-bacterial symbiotic micro ecosystems.
Using embroidery techniques, I created 10 banners featuring lic
"Memorials to the genii loci: Middle Rio Grande Basin" by Nina Dubois, Billy Joe Miller and Ellen Babcock
Drawing from the history of landscape architecture, and the use of urns as ornamental elements in formal garden settings, Memorials to the genii loci: Middle Rio Grande Basin is the first in a series of site-specific work that memorializes natural environments lost or altered by human impa
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