Artists Lead Forest Talk to Show Environmental Art in Action
April 16, 2015
PHILADELPHIA � On Sunday, April 26, seven Philadelphia artists will open up their studios, inviting the public to see how they�ve paired art and science in the LandLab artist residency at the Schuylkill Center. But these studios aren�t buildings, aren�t indoors at all. For the LandLab residents the Schuylkill Center�s fields and forests have been studio and laboratory for the past year as the artists grapple with how environmental art can address local ecological issues.
Some of the artists have turned their focus on pollinator populations, others have looked at encroaching invasive plants or stormwater damage. Each artist, or group of artists, has dedicated countless hours creating art that both restores the land and educates the public. At Restoring the Land through Environmental Art on Sunday, April 26 at 1 pm, in partnership with the Philadelphia Science Festival, the public can join LandLab artists to see the installations on site at the Schuylkill Center.
The 2014-2015 LandLab residents, artist group B. H. Mills, Maggie Mills, and Marguerita Hagan; Leslie Birch; Jake Beckman; and botanist-artist duo WE THE WEEDS (Zya Levy and Kaitlin Pomerantz), have been hard at work researching, thinking, and making their installations. The artists will talk about how they developed the installations and how the pieces mitigate, remediate, or restore the land around them. Scientific experts (including collaborators on the artists� projects) will join the conversation to offer ecological context.
Restoring the Land through Environmental Art is also a celebration of the LandLab residency. LandLab, a collaboration between the Schuylkill Center and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, pushes the boundaries of environmental art, asking art to be not just in its environmental context, but to actually change its setting. Art takes on an active role in ecological remediation, engaging artists and scientists to take on the challenges of a changing planet, with a focus on local solutions for local problems.
Restoring the Land through Environmental Art isn�t the public�s only chance to meet the artists and see their works � though it will be the only guided hike to the installations with the artists � the residency will culminate in a gallery show at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Rittenhouse Square. The show, with an opening reception Thursday, April 30, is titled Drawing Conclusions. Drawing Conclusions will offer the public a chance to see how the LandLab artists approached their work, how the time creating art in nature impacted their artistic practice, and how science informed their art. The installations themselves will remain on site, allowing the artists to monitor and observe how time acts on their work.
The Schuylkill Center, the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, and the Philadelphia Science Festival invite the public to join the LandLab artists on April 26 and April 30 to see the installations in the forest and discover what happens when art and science meet.
For more information: www.schuylkillcenter.org
