And Eat It Too
A planted installation at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia, NY | Indigo dyed burlap sacks; wood chips; straw; hay; elephant dung; top soil; site-tailored native seed mix; native plants | 14 × 14 × 14 feet (dimensions variable) | August 26, 2023 - Present
And Eat It Too is a time-based work designed to decompose into its site. This process is being observed and documented with a trail cam set to take a photograph of the sculpture each day. These images will eventually be compiled into a time-lapse video after the piece has completed its return to the earth. Along the way, the installation will host a series of events highlighting the intersection of art and ecology, the first of which took place at the “opening,” — an elaborate foraged and locally sourced meal created by resident Waff-Toff Benjo Simon.
Continuing a series of sculptural landscape interventions, And Eat It Too engages with the process of composting both conceptually and practically. Taking formal details from elaborately piped and decorated cakes, the structure will actually eat itself — composting and transforming into nutrients for the surroundings. Decorative flourishes include asters, goldenrods, and native grasses planted directly into the structure’s surface.
This piece builds on a body of work that revolves around ecological processes, participatory spectacle, and transformative possibility. It provides habitat and supports biodiversity using plants, seeds, spores, and viewer interaction. As it changes and decays, the sculpture counters notions of object permanence. In-line with questions contemporary artists are asking about monumentality, this installation is an anti-monument — a compost heap — celebrating all kinds of creative acts, be they handmade, microbial, or photosynthetic.
Acknowledging that all artworks function within some combination of ecosystems, And Eat It Too aims to prioritize personal relationships and local networks outside of the confines of the art world. A nearby timber-framer supplied the hay from the fields surrounding his home. The Syracuse Zoo generously donated a dumpster of elephant dung – a resource not originally a part of the project’s material palette. The Art Park staff and their family members all pitched in to help unload hay wagons, dye tubes of burlap, and then fill those tubes with a combination of the dung and other organic materials. Neighbors brought over warm clothes to guard against the chilly weather. The project brought about interactions between dairy farmers, junk haulers, university art students, and scientists, as well as longtime friends and collaborators. It required group problem-solving, specialized equipment rentals, planting demonstrations, and a lot of manual labor.
And Eat It Too reimagines how public sculpture might function. What might it look like for an artwork to actively participate in an ecosystem, rather than attempting to withstand natural forces? What might it feel like to see this large structure surrender to its site? And how might that surrender actively provide fertile ground for new growth?
Image credits: Ben Simon
Special thanks to Sayward, Emily, Nick, Chloe, Anna, Beth, John, Grace, Mike, John, Owen, Wilma, Dale, Randy, Tricia, Carrie, the elephants, Matt, Don, Sam, Mitchell, Taryn, Ro, Mommygirl, Kris, Michael, Lizzie, Chenda, Travis, Meg, Donna, Ben, John, Rae, and Rita.
And Eat It Too received funding from The New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant, the Puffin Foundation, and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts.