The mysterious structure standing outside Johnson Gym is actually “Cultural Digest(e),” a piece of structural art made by Nina Dubois and Jeanette Hart-Mann. “Cultural Digest(e)” represents the food-waste cycle at UNM, encouraging the UNM community to pay attention to their role in that cycle. It is one of four site-specific works included in the UNM Art Museum exhibit, “Dispersal/Return: Land Arts of the American West 2000-2006,” which runs through Nov. 25.
“‘Cultural Digest(e)’ was conceived and designed as a project that would allow us to engage the UNM campus as a living organism and more specifically to look at and intervene in the food-waste cycle there, making visible the stream of living matter that comes in and out of that context and making it something that people could interact with,” Dubois said.
The central location means the piece is seen by a greater cross-section of the university’s population, encouraging conversations that have allowed the work to expand beyond the confines of art, she said.
“People walk by the work on a daily basis – on their way to classes and to the gym – and they’ve become really observant of and engage in the ever-changing, growing nature of the work, commenting on the garden’s evolution and the growth of the grass walls,” she said.
Dubois, born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, grew up watching her father and uncle build objects for the family, from furniture to cabins.
“They are both very resourceful and inventive, and I loved the fact that they could use their hands and simple tools to make and fix things,” she said.
Dubois went to Concordia University in Montreal, where she also participated in the exchange program and studied at UNM for a year.
Hart-Mann was born in Columbus, Ohio, and grew up on her family’s farm where she drew, painted, built and played music.
“I find myself influenced by many people who have or had the courage to stand up for things they believe in, like Aldo Leopold, Vandana Shiva and Tim DeChristopher,” she said. “But really, I am particularly enamored with common, everyday people living and working close to the land.”
She attended Ohio State University and graduated from UNM in 2002.
Both Dubois and Hart-Mann believe that structural art acts as a bridge between humans and the spaces around them.
“Building literally makes that bridge between the environment and human constructs, and how we build reflects how we relate to the world around us,” Dubois said.
Hart-Mann said, “As an artistic tool, structures and environments enable a dialogue with the viewer that is related to the everyday experience of life because we are all used to thinking about the world in these primary ways, through sensory/bodily experiences.”
Because of their shared background in agriculture and in creating “permaculture” environments, Dubois and Hart-Mann wanted to create a project that brought together aspects of art, architecture, food, plants, soil, social practice and waste stream assessment, Hart-Mann said.
That project became “Cultural Digest(e).”
“Jenn and I have both gone on to work on farms and are really interested in how food can be grown in a context that supports the health of the entire ecosystem,” Dubois said. “We wanted to make a work that would embody these kinds of dynamics in a way that would reflect the particular organic flows of the site we were working with.”
Story by Jazmen Bradford
Posted by sari at November 23, 2009 12:55 PM