Endangered Plants Index Degree Project

Unfortunately, I discovered a few weeks ago that there were issues with where I was accessing the information for my work, and I have therefore had to change a few elements of my work, including editing the design of the labels that I have made to convey information about the plants that I’ve drawn to the viewer.

The image above shows the new style labels and the changes thatI have made to the, the most notable being:

• The QR code takes you to Kew Gardens Plants of the World Website, or another relevant site, such as RBGE (Catacol Whitebeam).
• The labels now have Image and Information sources (citations) in the bottom left hand corner, which will also be supported by a generic label on the wall about the sources of information and imagery.

Although these seem very simple changes they took quite a while to devise and fully implement – although I now think that they are more successful than the original – they are certainly much more simple and legible for the viewer, and will hopefully aid rather than confuse their understanding of the work.

I am also pleased with the referencing of the sources – as not only does this make it clear where the information I used is from, but it also shows the viewer that genuine thought and research has gone into this project, and that these plants are real and all of the data is scientific and can be traced back, by the viewer, to the sources that I have named.

Yesterday, we had our first crit since [starting] installing our work for assessment and degree show. I found this really useful, with a lot of suggestions and thoughts for improvements – and some very useful feedback on some bits that I wasn’t so sure about.

The image below shows my notes from the crit:

Although I found the whole crit very useful, the elements that I felt were most useful and which I will be acting on are:

• Where and how I display information about both the drawings and the rewilding project: having the information on the rewilding project in the photo frame on the desk didn’t work for those who viewed it (although I liked it), and instead they felt that it would be more effective and useful if I put it on the wall next to the space.
• Have a photograph of the area that is being rewilded.
• Have the proposals available for viewers to take away and read at their leisure, rather than looking through the one on the desk. (or a condensed version of the same information)
• Think about what information is key for the viewer’s understanding of the work, and tell them that before they look at the work, so that they understand it in the right way and the correct message and meaning is conveyed.
• Possibly trying having a blank piece of paper in the gaps where there is no drawing on the wall, in order to show the missing plants.

These are the most important points for me, and the ones that I will be working on over the next few days. I am unsure whether having blank pieces of paper in the gaps where there currently is no drawing will convey the correct message about the depletion of the plants and the fact that these are critically endangered species which are vanishing from the world. However, I will try it on Monday and see how it looks. I am also hopeful that the addition of all of the labels will make the layout and message make more sense to the viewer, as it will highlight the fact that there should be plants in those gaps, and make them question the reason why there aren’t any drawings there.

I am also going to think very carefully about the information that I need to provide in order for the audience to understand what they are looking at. I wasn’t sure what information I really needed to convey here, so this was very helpful in showing me what people need to know about the two works.

There were also a few suggestions which I have already got in progress, but hadn’t managed to install in time for the crit, such as the finished labels, and images of the space that will be rewilded in the rewilding space.

Overall however, it was a really helpful crit, and has showed me which parts of the works are working and where I need to change elements, in order for it to have the effect that I want and need it to.

Over the past week, we have been preparing the studio space for degree show and assessment, painting and filling the walls and then hanging our work.

As I have a large space to fill and have a different colour on the wall too, it took me a long time to get my space looking how I want it to, and these photographs document that process.

As you can see from the photos above, when I painted the walls, I first spotted over any particularly dark areas on the all, before painting over the patches with the roller. This worked nicely for the grey/green wall, although sadly there were some patches on the white wall which I really struggled to cover, no matter how many coats of paint I applied to the wall. I ended up having to put some filler over the particularly bad areas and painting over that with the white paint, which seemed to finally cover it.

I finished painting the walls last Thursday, and this week, I have been working on hanging and installing my work in the space, which has been much more challenging and has taken much longer than I was expecting it to.

Before starting to hang everything, I had to work out how exactly I wanted everything to be laid out, and the distances between each drawing and label that I wanted on the wall too. Calculating this took much longer than I was expecting, as I had to measure the space and calculate the gaps that I needed between each drawing so that they fit nicely on the wall, not being too crowded or not sufficiently filling the wall. I decided to have three rows of drawings and labels in the end – I considered having two, but they didn’t all fit on, and having three rows makes it a more engaging and impressive display as well.

Once this was calculated, I then had to actually hang the work, which I thankfully got help with, as this was very difficult to do on my own. As of yesterday evening, I had managed to hang all of my drawings, along with placing a few of the labels on the first two rows on the wall.

The above image is a panorama (although the quality of the image isn’t great, due to the distortion, it captured the entire wall in one go, which I was grateful for. Once all of my work is hung, I will make sure to document everything carefully, in sections with proper care of the camera and quality of the image) of the wall of drawings, where you can see the layout that I’m currently using. This involves leaving spaces where there are drawings that I haven’t completed yet, which shows both the continuation of my project, whilst also highlighting the fact that these plants are critically endangered and are disappearing from the world, thus reinforcing the message and reason of the series.

I am pleased with how they look on the wall currently, although I think that they will look more effective once all of the labels are on the wall, as this will make the whole work much easier to understand and to interpret.

I also have been working on installing my rewilding project, which is designed to look like a cross between an office and a potting shed – where someone has been working on the project and has quickly stepped out of the room. The above photo shows an in progress stage of its set up, where I have the map on the wall (folded in half to highlight and centre Kesgrave, which is where the project is situated), with the desk underneath it, which now also has various ‘gardening’ tools and equipment, such as plant labels, gardening gloves, a small garden fork/rake and seeds. This area still needs more work, and I hope to add post-it notes and labels, which will create a more lived in feel to the piece, as well as conveying more information to the viewer about the project and the connection and separation between the drawings and the rewilding project.

Agnes Denes is most well known for her work Wheatfield: A Confrontation, but Denes has also created and crucially proposed many other works.

One of the proposed works, and one which is streakily relevant for me and my rewilding project, is A Forest For New York – A Peace Park For Mind And Soul. The following imagery is from the proposal on her website:

Although not called as such, Denes is affectively proposing a rewilding project for an area of unused land in New York, something which I find very interesting, as before working on my rewilding project, I wasn’t aware that rewilding – or even proposed rewilding – could be an artistic pursuit in of itself, and still face internal conflict over what constitutes art – something which I am attempting to change through this project.

However, the thing which strikes me most about this proposal, is the confidence with which it is written – Denes has created a proposal which both feels like she is selling the idea (not in monetary terms, but in terms of being engaging and enthusiastic enough to  both attract investors in the project, but also to get the go ahead from the necessary parties in order to proceed with the project (it is worth noting that this project remains a proposal and has not actually been created). Although it is just the proposal, Denes has written the proposal so that in has the feeling of certainty that it will happen – a feeling which I think is crucial to making the proposal more engaging and appealing, as it shows the level of work and consideration that has gone into the project, as well as highlighting her passion and reason for it.

Another key element to her building her proposal is the structure that she has written it in. As you can see from the screenshot above, Denes opens the proposal with three references to her other previous (and crucially similar) work, which provides three valuable case studies for the relevant parties to examine and understand the strength and vitality of her work. She then explores the technicalities and logistics of her proposed work, stating where (and why she has chosen that location) she plans to situate the work, and the form that the work will take. Immediately after this, she has included incentives as to why turning this site into a forest rather than real estate is a good thing for the city, the planet and the people – a crucial step in the contemporary frenzy of rampant capitalism, where the planet and the people fall by the wayside in the search for ever more profit.

The rest of the proposal lists several other incentives for the concerned parties – selling them at the promise of a utopian idll in New York – an extremely urban environment.

Although I have already written and given my proposal to the concerned parties for my rewilding project (which will hopefully get underway in the summer), I am very keen to implement what I have learnt from reading this proposal from Agnes Denes into a condensed version which the viewers of my work can take away with them – providing the correct level of information, which will explain what I’m doing with the project, why I’m doing it and be an engaging and interesting document for them to take away. In order to do this, I will emulate the structure that Denes has used here, keeping it short and largely devoid of technical information (apart from the bare necessities) , but listing why the project needs to happen and the huge benefits and incentives there are in the creation of the project, in order to engage and excite the viewer. Denes’ proposal has also shown me that you don’t need to include a huge volume imagery either – one key image, which shows what you plan to do in the project (a maquette) is enough to get the audience engaged and also means that they are much more easily able to visualise what you are proposing, which also makes it easier for them to understand.

Source: Denes, A. (2014) A Forest For New York – A Peace Park For Mind And Soul [Proposed work]. Available at: http://agnesdenesstudio.com/works1.html (Accessed: 3 June 2022)

Radical Landscapes at Tate Liverpool was recommended to me, and in the exhibition, there is Back to the Fields by Ruth Ewan.

Back to the Fields is a really interesting work, both for the concept behind it, and the physicality of the work itself. The work consists of 360 disparate items, each of which

“denote[s] the days of the year [according to the French Republican Calendar] – such as a lettuce, a cart, wax, a turnip, honey, a fir tree, ivy, figs, mercury, lava, moss, tuna, a pheasant, an axe” (Ewan, R. ND).

The combination of such seemingly unrelated items and beings into one indoor space forces the viewer to consider the human interaction with the natural world, and how we have separated ourselves from it, and attempt to control it – although it is at its core uncontrollable. What I also find particularly interesting is the way in which there is a mix of artificial and natural items displayed here – combining the human and the natural – yet the dominating element in the exhibition is the plant.

For me, the dominance of the plant in the installation symbolises the dominance of the plant in our every-day lives; we are unable to live without plants: even the artificial objects in the installation have plant based elements. Yet we still seek to control them. for the installation, all of the plants are placed in plant pots for their continued survival, a fact which of course is a logistical element, but which also demonstrates our human unwillingness to allow nature fully into our artificial environments.

The labelling and organisation of the work also strikes me – as each item has been given a corresponding number, which in turn is colour coded to match the related month in the year that that particular item belongs in. There is again, and orderliness to it, which feels as though it is an attempt to control the uncontrollable, breaking something large into manageable chunks that humans can better understand and grasp. However, having said this, I really like the method with which Ewan has labelled and organised the pieces of the installation – creating an easy to read and understand almost ‘clock-face’ calendar, which invites the viewer to engage with the work, forcing them to look more deeply into the work.

This encouragement to engage more deeply with the work due to the level of detail and organisation is something that I am also employing in my work, through the use of labels and the level of detail that I have included in my drawings, encouraging the viewer to want to look more closely and learn more about the subjects of the work.

Additionally, the subject matter of Back to the Fields is very closely related to both my Rewilding Project, and the botanical illustrations that I have created. Although the reason for using these particular subjects differs between our works, the fact that we are both creating art involving them illustrates (I believe) the continued and in fact, ever growing, importance of plants and nature in our lives – regardless of whether we continue attempting to control, destroy and isolate ourselves from the natural world. Back to the Fields is definitely a work that I would be very interested in seeing in person and experiencing the installation as it is meant to be viewed – physically, with the accompanying sights, sounds, smells and emotional responses.

Sources:

1. Ewan, R. (2015/16) Back to the Fields. [Installation] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/radical-landscapes
2. Ewan, R. (ND) Back to the Fields. Available at: http://ruthewan.com/projects/back-to-the-fields/