Natural Habitats

H20: The Art of Conservation

This post comes to you from Green Public Art

H20: The Art of Conservation

May 6 – November 12, 2011

at The Water Conservation Garden

12122 Cuyamaca College Drive West, El Cajon, CA 92019

This unique exhibition, curated by Green Public Art, offers San Diego homeowners an artistic alternative to incorporate water conservation into their own garden spaces. The exhibition challenges fourteen established and emerging San Diego artists to reflect on water conservation, to consider the natural context in which the artwork is being created and to explore working with recycled, re-purposed or non-traditional materials. This group exhibition, hosted by the San Diego Fine Art Society, will include art works that are an aesthetic manifestation of water conservation, providing another lens with which to view our role in Southern California’s efforts to act sustainably, conserve energy and preserve natural habitats.

ARTISTS scheduled to participate in the exhibition include: Dia Bassett, Bociek & Bociek, Lea de Wit, Rebecca Goodman, Matthew Hebert, Terri Hughes-Oelrich, Miki Iwasaki, Benjamin Lavender, Omar Lopez, Collective Magpie, Adam John Manley, Christopher Puzio, Fritize Urquhart and Ruth Wallen.

ABOUT THE WATER CONSERVATION GARDEN: The Water Conservation Garden has nearly five acres of displays that showcase water conservation through a series of beautiful themed gardens, such as a native plant garden and a vegetable garden, as well as how-to displays such as mulch and irrigation exhibits. Admission is free, and the Garden can be viewed on a self-guided tour, or through one of their programs. Located at 12122 Cuyamaca College Drive West, El Cajon, CA 92019.

ABOUT SAN DIEGO FINE ART SOCIETY: San Diego Fine Art Society (SDFAS) is strengthening the art pulse of the community through education and collaboration. By removing barriers and building bridges, SDFAS is helping San Diego reach its potential as a top arts destination in the country. Its mission is to strengthen the art pulse of the community through education and collaboration.

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Rebecca Ansert, founder of Green Public Art, is an art consultant who specializes in artist solicitation, artist selection, and public art project management for both private and public agencies. She is a graduate of the master’s degree program in Public Art Studies at the University of Southern California and has a unique interest in how art can demonstrate green processes or utilize green design theories and techniques in LEED certified buildings.

Green Public Art is a Los Angeles-based consultancy that was founded in 2009 in an effort to advance the conversation of public art’s role in green building. The consultancy specializes in public art project development and management, artist solicitation and selection, creative community involvement and knowledge of LEED building requirements. Green Public Art also works with emerging and mid-career studio artists to demystify the public art process. The consultancy acts as a resource for artists to receive one-on-one consultation before, during, and after applying for a public art project.
Go to Green Public Art

H20: The Art of Conservation – Green Public Art

H20: The Art of Conservation

May 6 – November 12, 2011

at The Water Conservation Garden

12122 Cuyamaca College Drive West, El Cajon, CA 92019

This unique exhibition, curated by Green Public Art, offers San Diego homeowners an artistic alternative to incorporate water conservation into their own garden spaces. The exhibition challenges fourteen established and emerging San Diego artists to reflect on water conservation, to consider the natural context in which the artwork is being created and to explore working with recycled, re-purposed or non-traditional materials. This group exhibition, hosted by the San Diego Fine Art Society, will include art works that are an aesthetic manifestation of water conservation, providing another lens with which to view our role in Southern California’s efforts to act sustainably, conserve energy and preserve natural habitats.

ARTISTS scheduled to participate in the exhibition include: Dia Bassett, Bociek & Bociek, Lea de Wit, Rebecca Goodman, Matthew Hebert, Terri Hughes-Oelrich, Miki Iwasaki, Benjamin Lavender, Omar Lopez, Collective Magpie, Adam John Manley, Christopher Puzio, Fritize Urquhart and Ruth Wallen.

ABOUT THE WATER CONSERVATION GARDEN: The Water Conservation Garden has nearly five acres of displays that showcase water conservation through a series of beautiful themed gardens, such as a native plant garden and a vegetable garden, as well as how-to displays such as mulch and irrigation exhibits. Admission is free, and the Garden can be viewed on a self-guided tour, or through one of their programs. Located at 12122 Cuyamaca College Drive West, El Cajon, CA 92019.

ABOUT SAN DIEGO FINE ART SOCIETY: San Diego Fine Art Society (SDFAS) is strengthening the art pulse of the community through education and collaboration. By removing barriers and building bridges, SDFAS is helping San Diego reach its potential as a top arts destination in the country. Its mission is to strengthen the art pulse of the community through education and collaboration.

GREEN PUBLIC ART

Adaptation: Between Species / e-flux

Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Cory Arcangel, John Bock, Olaf Breuning, Marcus Coates, Robyn Cumming, Mark Dion, FASTWÜRMS, Shaun Gladwell, Lucy Gunning, Nina Katchadourian, Louise Lawler, Hanna Liden, Hew Locke, Sandra Meigs, Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, Jeff Sonhouse, Javier Téllez , Michelle Williams Gamaker

Curator: Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs

Civilization notwithstanding, we live with and among nature and animals. Cultural followers such as pigeons, rats, foxes, and – in Canada – bears, live off our refuse, while bacteria reside in our guts. The industrial world eats further into natural habitats, but micro-environments flourish in urban and exurban sites. Responding to the contemporary desire to go “back to nature,” The Power Plant’s summer group exhibition ‘Adaptation: Between Species’ explores interspecies encounters. What happens when humans, animals and the natural world meet? What forms of communication, miscommunication, intimacy, and exchange ensue?

While species live in ever closer proximity, many people feel profoundly cut off both from natural environments and from their own animal natures. Our deep longing to connect with non-human life forms is reflected in contemporary phenomena ranging from the boom in pet ownership and the widespread anthropomorphism in popular culture to the upsurge in vacations that promise to transport us to unspoiled lands.

However, despite this deep-seated sense of alienation from nature, the species are in fact closely related. For instance, as Donna Haraway notes in her book When Species Meet, 90 percent of human cells are filled with the genomes of bacteria, fungi, protists, and such, with only 10 percent comprising human genomes. ‘Adaptation’ explores this commonality between the species and considers the various forms of intelligence and knowledge they share. It also asks what our interactions with other species reveal about our human as well as our animal natures. Highlighting the urge to observe, touch, live with, and mimic other species, the exhibition delves into the intimate and, at times, uncanny fusions that result. Many of the artworks hover between seriousness and absurdity, embracing the potential for fantasy, childish antics and regression at the core of human/non-human relations, and reveling in the transgression of both social acceptability and human identity that interspecies encounters can engender.

Coinciding with the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity, the exhibition considers how adaptation functions as a form of biological and cultural survival. It also takes a realistic view of human/non-human dynamics, acknowledging the unbalanced and exploitative power relations that too often characterize our society’s attitudes toward other life forms.

What do we learn by sharing our lives and this planet with other species? Impersonating and identifying with the natural world and the animal kingdom might contain the seeds for radical change, as we affirm our links with other species, recognize our animal natures and experience the liberation of feeling wild at heart.

A publication together with an extensive program of public events accompanies the exhibition. Highlights include a DJ Set and SKRY-POD public tarot reading by Ontario artists FASTWÃœRMS, a film screening ‘Animal Drag Kingdom’ with works by Guy Ben-Ner, Douglas Gordon, Kathy High, Kristin Lucas, and Steve Reinke and Jessie Mott, a children’s workshop on animal language, and free gallery tours every weekend at 2pm.

SUPPORT DONOR: The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation

The Power Plant offers free gallery admission all summer thanks to the support of the Hal Jackman Foundation and Media Partner NOW Magazine.

via Adaptation: Between Species / e-flux.