sketchbook no. 10

in 1962 alison knowles made salad making an art.  she elevated an everyday activity into art.

in the 90s, social relations were turned into art through relational aesthetics.

i have always wanted to make art out of science, and economics, and community.  i want to reduplicate science experiments as art installations.  i want to create businesses as art works.

i want to make art out of cultivating plants.

in one piece i propose, i would install a series of plants in a gallery.  each plant would be a part of an experiment with a control to measure efficacy of some chemical or treatment.  perhaps miracle grow or other supplements.  to both scientifically record and visually demonstrate either the failure or prosperity of a living organism under certain condition.

in another piece, i would plants seeds from fruit garnered from supermarkets, organic grocery stores, and fruit trees in the city.  do many americans realize the produce, the food they consume comes from genetically altered plants that cannot reproduce?  obviously most of the seeds would not germinate into any plant.

in a three piece i propose to give away growing starter sets with seed trays, seeds, and soil to volunteers in portland.  the volunteers would grow produce in their backyard promising to harvest the second generation of seeds produced from these plants to return to my art installation which would then send the seeds to impoverished farmers in need thereby allowing the farmers to bypass the corporations from which they must buy seeds that are genetically altered not to produce future generations.