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About
Visitors to the Not A Cornfield (NAC) exhibition will be introduced to the story, the history, and the legacy of an art project that grew a cornfield in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.
Both an object (the cornfield) and a meaningful social and ecological space (not a cornfield), NAC was a work of cultural activism by artist Lauren Bon that transformed 32-acres of barren post-industrial land into fertile earth and germinated two new organizations, Farmlab and The Studio For Social Sculpture (S3).
In addition to detailing a radically site-specific project in images, objects, sounds and words, the exhibition also raises questions about such pressing contemporary issues as the politics of land use, food production, and sustainability in the context of global warming.
By providing host institutions with core exhibition materials as well as education resources and program support, the exhibition will stimulate citizens at each stop on the exhibition tour to ask how such global issues impact locally. In particular the NAC exhibition will stimulate dialog that uncovers ideas to support local sustainable practices, biodiversity, and community development.
Core Exhibition Components
- 12 stand-alone photographs, each 30"x44"
- 80 photographic images 10"x8" or 17"x12" with accompanying text. Images include color and monochrome, birds-eye views, infrared aerial shots, historic and contemporary maps and photographs that catalog NAC through all of its stages. Images are attached to 30 wall-hung exhibit panels.
- A timeline of key events in the history of the project site running horizontally around the gallery, printed on the exhibit panels. Text, timeline and images flow around the walls, carried by the exhibit panels.
- Panels are 48"x96" and mounted onto archival wood laminated foamcore. Panels attach to the wall with french cleats. They have a total length of 120 feet. Giving them a 'stand alone' appearance, the 88 photographic images are attached to the panels with Velcro
- Two projections of NAC surveillance footage (one day, one night) shown facing one another on ceiling-hung screens, each 6'x8', secured to the ceiling and weighted at bottom (but not attached to the ground). 2 x ceiling mounted projectors supplied.
- An interactive digital 'kiosk' containing project documentation, including:
- Detailed timeline of geographical, historical, and social data and analysis beginning 1.7 billion years ago
- 30 short films about NAC by Echo Park Film Center
- 2-hour audio-documentary The Roots of the Park by Radio Sonideros
- Image galleries of maps and photographs
- 30+ hardcopy 'Public Narrative Cards' (PNCs), which describe the work of Farmlab and S3. May be displayed in a rack or wall-mounted
- An 8'x8'x24' hand-folded origami projection screen with layered footage of Farmlab actions. Shaped like a three-dimensional helix, the screen opens and closes in a concertina fashion and can assume a shorter dimension if necessary. Partially self-supporting and partially suspended from the ceiling. 3 x ceiling mounted projectors supplied.
- A 'flow chart' diagramming Farmlab actions and organization, drawn on a chalk wall. 8'x18'
- A context reminiscent of the comfortable Farmlab aesthetic, created with comfortable (worn) seats, blackboard paint + chalk, which functions as a social + information exchange space
- A 6'x10'x2' floor-mounted "seed bed", filled with freeze-dried corn kernels, in which visitors can walk, sit or rest their feet
Supporting Components
- Education program: Lesson templates for k-12 students that address topics raised by NAC, which are translatable to exhibition-local conditions. Each lesson plan includes vocabulary and objectives, background information, discussion points and questions, classroom activities (with cross-curricular links), art historical background, and a chart of standards covered.
- Salon Series: List of suggested speakers to support local dialog
- Film Series: List of suggested film + video programming
- The Not A Cornfield Book: A two volume boxed set with DVD containing numerous photographs and collected essays, including by Lauren Bon, Manuel Castells, Michael Dear, and Christine Wertheim. $35 retail. $25 trade
Experiencing The Exhibition
At the exhibition entry are 8/12 stand-alone photographs of the NAC project, including striking overhead shots that show the field in its urban context during different phases of the agricultural cycle. A didactic panel describes the project and its scope.
Visitors enter a gallery where the light is low and controlled. Here they encounter eighty/ninety smaller images, with accompanying text and a timeline. Spot lighting illuminates the layout panels, which are printed with white text on a dark grey background. The timeline of the NAC site integrates geographical, historical, and social data and analysis beginning 1.7 billion years ago and ultimately focusing on the 2005/6 NAC period. Images include Nineteenth century maps and Twentieth century photographs, as well as photographs of Not A Cornfield in its various stages with its many events and participants.
The information of the exhibit, with text, timeline, and photos, lines most of the gallery walls, but suspended here too there is a pair of screens, which hang opposite one another. Providing visitors with an experience of the growing corn, they display edited surveillance footage of NAC. Glowing with intensity in the half-light, they create a space of sound and vision that hovers somewhere between reenactment, memorial, and documentation. Projectors are supplied.
Moving on, visitors enter a second low-lit space, this one dedicated to the work of NAC's legacy projects: Farmlab and S3. Here a film/installation speaks to the multi-layered quality of their activities. Footage is simultaneously projected from 3 ceiling-mounted projectors onto the facets of a 3-dimensional helix-shaped 'screen'. Built by an origami master, the screen is a sculptural structure. Its flickering luminosity is partially self-supporting and partially supported from the ceiling.
Finally, visitors enter a space where cushions, seats, side tables and table lamps create a comfortable domestic ambience. A proportion of the walls are painted with blackboard paint (chalk is provided) and the aforementioned Public Narrative Cards and digital kiosk are available. Here local environmentalists, artists, activists, and interested citizens can leave notes and pamphlets, while exhibition visitors can have a sit down, exchange thoughts, read the Public Narrative Cards, and explore the rich contents of the digital kiosk.
Permutations
The components described above can be configured in various ways. They may all, for example, be installed in one gallery, divided up into a number of smaller rooms. Additionally, as will occur for the originating exhibition, components may be distributed across more than one institution. In this way greater local penetration becomes possible.
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[Aerial view of Not A Cornfield project site], Photo by Steven
Rowell, 2005. Digital Print. © 2005 Not A Cornfield LLC |
