FIELDWORK

the project

 

 

The title is a play on an abstract painting movement from the late 50s and early 60s.

 

I intend to use a private vacant block in order to create a visually stunning field of sunflowers. These fields of golden yellow are juxtaposed against the city building, or a factory wall, or even urban streetscapes.

 

Local schools, businesses, community groups, which are in closest proximity to the sites will help care for the 'field', from soil preparation to the cultivation of the seeds.

 

 The audience will see this artwork from its birth to its death…and then its eventual renewal again.

 

 

the location

 

 

The site is in Alfred St, Kensington, close to the Melbourne CBD. It is adjacent to the Tullamarine freeway and the Broadmeadows railway line underneath. It is currently vacant and devoid of buildings but for a small victorian stable. It was originally the site of a Spring factory

the process

 

 

 

STAGE 1 : IDENTIFY AND LOCK IN SITES

 

The site at Alfred St is locked in. Thanks to the generosity of HWD Australia, who are lending the site for peppercorn rent.

 

STAGE 2 : BRING IN EXPERTISE

 

Rob Christie of Nuseed is giving technical advice on optimum positions regarding sunlight, and the best method for preparing the soil and seeding.

 

 

STAGE 3 : SEEK COLLABORATORS

 

It will be important to find groups of people (Field group), who are familiar with the sites and are keen to participate in the process of growing and maintaining a field of sunflowers. Anyone is welcome to join in..!

 

STAGE 4 : START PREPARING THE GROUND

 

The preparation stage will require heavy machinery and operators, an experienced seeder, the ‘Field group’, and  myself.  We will also be germinating some seeds for testing prior to planting.

 

STAGE 5 : PLANTING

 

This stage will require groups of local volunteers to plant seedlings and water in.

 

STAGE 6 : MAINTENANCE

 

The  Field Group will maintain the crop and ensure it is watered, and pest free. We will try to do this with rain runoff (tanks), and removal of bugs by hand. Supplemented by sprays if required.

 

STAGE 7 : HARVEST

 

The harvest will involve the farmer, the Field Group  and myself. The seeds will be stored until ready to be sorted and packaged. This stage could be combined with stage 8.

 

STAGE 8 : DISTRIBUTION

 

Seeds will be sorted and packaged so they can be distributed to various communities. The land will be restored to a fallow condition.

 

STAGE 9. EXHIBITION

 

All documentation will be collated and formed into an exhibition to be shown at a space to be confirmed. Seeds may be available at this venue.

 

 

the influences

 

 

 

ROBERT SMITHSON -

Has been a major influence in my work for a long time. His idea to take art into the landscape and landscape into the gallery was radical in its time but also started a relationship that many artist have followed since. I was given the book at the end of my tenure in a Landscape Architecture firm.

 

RICHARD LONG – 

I always liked his appreciation of patterns in nature and his attempts to replicate the dichotomy between the seemingly random aspects and the repetitive parts that make the aesthetic. His foray into natural environments and the consequential interventionist rearrangements were both clever and evocative.

 

LAND ART – Movement born in the 60’s to try to move conceptual art into the natural or urban terrain.

 

Is a label given to artists who work in the natural environment and create works of art that somehow relate to the space outside a city. The landscape is usually the source of the materials used in the works and the works themselves are often site specific. The term is originally derived from writings of Robert Smithson.

 

Roasalind Krauss- Wrote an article in 1979  called The Expanded Field that sought to clarify the varying amalgams of architecture, landscape and sculpture. In her writing she used the term earthworks. She suggested that the underpinnings of this movement lay the groundwork for post modernism.

 

Giles Tiberghein – In 1995  he Takes the premis of Krausses paradigm a little further and investigates the minimalist influences of minialist artists including Carl Andre, Donald Judd and Sol le Witt. He reinforces a post modernist angle and points to the  importance of theory and conceptual practice within the art. He saw the earthworks as a means by which one could question the “elite” nature of the gallery space.

 

VAGUE TERRAIN – Architect, Ignasi de Solà-Morales coined the term terrain vague in an essay in 1995to describe such places: obsolete or dysfunctional sites that punctuate the otherwise cohesive, definable organization of the cityscape.

 

SOCIALLY ENGAGED ART – CLARE BISHOP-

 Clare Bishop wites about art that seeks to employ aesthtic devices in a way that creates a socially interactive situation. There are a number of artists who in recent times have sought to  work with communities or local organizations in a collaborative way that sometimes involves participation ranging from practical support to overt political action. In a way it is about changing the audience from passive viewers to participants.

 

 

The Site for Fieldwork .