LAND TRUST | 2017 48 Hours Exhibition Catalog by Kirsten Marie Walsh

LAND TRUST

48 Hours of Socially Engaged Art + Conversation

All photographs by Wes Magyar, unless otherwise noted. Cover image courtesy of Cannupa Hanska Luger.

RedLine is a non-profit contemporary art center. RedLine fosters education & engagement between artists and communities to create positive social change. 48 Hours 2017 Summit and Exhibition followed RedLine’s annual theme, (Dis)place and focused on geography, community, access to resources, location, and relocation. In a rapidly growing city, 48 Hours explored the many complicated layers of what makes a “place.” How does the physical fabric of a city contribute to understandings of civic character? Which neighborhoods and populations profit from development, and who is displaced as a result? How can artdelineate places and mediate between communities? 48 Hours Summit / August 11 & 12, 2017 LAND TRUST Exhibition / August 11 - 27, 2017 REDLINE / 2350 Arapahoe Street / Denver, Colorado 80205 redlineart.org

...an exploration of the multifarious connections between people and the living landscape...

48 Hours

of Socially Engaged Art + Conversation Inspired by Denver’s Imagine 2020 Cultural Plan, 48 Hours of Socially Co- authorship / multiple voices are included in the creation process Engaged Art & Conversation Summit aims to promote positive social change through creativity and innovation. Sustained Commitment / demonstrates depth of knowledge and investment by the artist; immersive experience for community 48 Hours: 2017 follows RedLine’s annual theme, (Dis)place members; shared responsibility to the long-term goals of the project focusing on geography, community, access to resources, location, and relocation. In a rapidly growing city, 48 Hours explores the Disruption / exposes a barrier, concern, and/or social issues while many complicated layers of what makes a “place.” How does challenging traditional norms and power structures; offers alternative the physical fabric of a city contribute to understandings of solutions and perspectives civic character? Which neighborhoods and populations profit from development, and who is displaced as a result? How Collaboration / uses knowledge and experience from different can art delineate places and mediate between communities? disciplines in a nonhierarchical manner; allows for an equal exchange RedLine recognizes that increasingly, contemporary artists are Cultural Responsiveness / recognizes the value of cultural practices, looking beyond traditional relationships with viewers. They are beliefs, and knowledge from different communities; amplifies working with and in local communities to create art for social impact. community voices Rather than living only in the isolated context of arts institutions, much of the art produced by contemporary artists blurs lines between disciplines by incorporating aspects of social work, human services, science, psychology, activitism, and education. Though relatively new to a Western contemporary art dialogue, this kind of work has existed forever in various culture and communities. Alternately referred to as Socially Engaged Art, Social Practice, Social Justice Art, Cross-Sector Work in the Arts, Art for Social Change, Social Justice Art Education, Community Art, Relational Aesthetics, and Participatory Art, this work includes some of the these key attributes: 5

LAND TRUST We live in a world of motion, speed, and consumption. People and products buzz around the globe in a state of placeless-ness, while symbols and identities fluctuate in indeterminacy. Time is expressed in dollar signs and milliseconds, and our landscape constitutes little more in our imaginations than a series of ghostly forms whizzing past our vehicle windows. Below the clamor and dust of all that speed lies an unspoken faith that if we can just keep moving, keep our feet in the air long enough, we can avoid facing the imminent environmental catastrophe that lingers just around the corner. But, alas, everything that goes up must come down. Back down to earth â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the reality of that nurturing, volatile, and inextricable relationship with the environment â&#x20AC;&#x201C; we must come, either by choice or by calamity. LAND TRUST is an attempt to slow down and get our feet back on solid ground, to explore the cultural practices that connect us physically and spiritually to the world, and to look squarely at the human effects of environmental change. From urban agriculture to utopian aspirations, and environmentally initiated displacement to artistic approaches to protecting resources, LAND TRUST is an exploration of the multifarious connections between people and the living landscape. Libby Barbee and Kirsten Marie Walsh, co-curators

RYAN! FEDDERSON

Black Snake Rising Vinyl installation (2017) Pouring in as a coiling nest, this sea of oil depicts black snakes flowing in a progression of life-scale petroleumbased products transitioning into species most affected by oil spills. As they enter the work, the viewer is surrounded by the artworkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scale and implied motion to amplify the impression of being drown in an ocean filled with our indulgences and our consequences. In addition to the original composition, viewers are invited to select a vinyl decal of an item they use every day to add to the growing accumulation. ryanfeddersen.com

Jitterbug Cyborg insects augmented with circuit boards (2017, in-progress) “My art draws attention to the uncharted space between scientific theory, proven fact, and enigma. Although I am enamored with science, I understand it is like the proverb, ‘To every person is given the key to the gate of heaven; the same key opens the gate to hell.’ This amoral paradox of entangled beauty and fear comes with no manual on how to use science and answer the question of where, precisely, the scientific progress leads. With my installation work, I ask people to wonder about the blind nature of science. For LAND TRUST, I am showing two new works-in-progress. Both of these works involve living organisms, and showing them in-progress gives viewers a chance to understand how they work and discuss the implications of each artwork with me in person.

MEGAN GAFFORD

Jitterbug is an installation of cyborg insects whose movements I will control through a surgically attached circuit board. The bugs will move to the dance I choreograph for them. Raising colonies of insects and developing the technology will take time, largely restricted by the bug’s life cycles. Showing Jitterbug in-progres jump-starts a conversation: Should humanity harness other species to help ourselves? Do we value a single human life more than a multitude of bugs? Is it worse to use this technology for art instead of saving lives? Is it worse to squash a bug in your kitchen? And what about the military implications of cyborg insects?” Pushing Daisies Irradiated daisy seeds; 6-week-old seedlings as of 8/11/17 (2017, in-progress) “In June 2017 I dosed hundreds of daisy seeds with gamma radiation to try to mutate them like daisies found near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster site. These Japanese daisies had enlarged and elongated blossom that resemble caterpillars or conjoined twins. They reminded me of the infamous daisy ad from Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign: a little girl counts daisy petals until her voice is drowned out by a voice-over, which counts down to a nuclear explosion that engulfs the TV screen. The cartoonish and childlike quality of daisies makes this flower a potent symbol of innocence, or in this case, innocence corrupted. But radiation may not have caused the Japanese daisy deformities, and I do not know if I will succeed in causing mutations. If I am able, Pushing Daisies will be an elegant display of my transformed blossoms.” megangafford.com

Animas Industry processed iron-oxidized steel, aluminum, copper, and lead; microphone, audio transducer, amplifier (2016) The Animas River flows through the mountains of Southwestern Colorado, through what was once the undisputed land of Ute and Navajo people before the encroachment of miners in the 19th century.

BRIAN HOUSE

In 2015, the EPA was performing maintenance on the abandoned Gold King Mine when it accidentally released three million gallons of wastewater contaminated with heavy metals into the river, turning it a bright orange and threatening agriculture, tourism, and an already “disturbed” alpine ecology. Animas comprises four suspended panels of industry-processed metal — all metals that have exceeded EPA tolerances in the river. A contact microphone and audio transducer are affixed to each panel in a feedback circuit together with an amplifier. This causes each metal to vibrate at its own resonant frequency, creating a complex drone in the gallery space. The quality of the sound is adjusted by modulating the gain of the amplifiers — Animas does this in accordance with real-time data from water quality sensors placed in the river by the USGS. Changes in the clarity of the water, invisible indicators of the dissolved metals within it, and the dynamics of its daily and seasonal flows all become sound in the gallery, producing timbral “color” from the river’s continually changing composition. Animas resists over-simplified representations of environmental degradation, creating a felt relationship to the river. It acknowledges how our limited temporal sensibilities are challenged by the imbrication of the geologic time of minerals, the historical time of extractive industries, and the immediate urgency of sane and equitable responses to rapid ecological change. brianhouse.net

WINTER COUNT COLLECTIVE

CauseLines Video Projection (2017)

Lake Sakakawea Video Projection (2016)

CauseLines is a multi-disciplinary interactive and investigative approach to geography. This work engages a historic technology of music composition used by people of the Northern Plains. This is a practice of studying horizon-lines from which to create melody and tone repertoire. It is a process of resonating the landscape, binding geography to culture, singing the song-lines of belonging. We reference this pedagogy through a confluence of newer technological platforms. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re creating scores from imagery of drone aerial footage that we have generated during times of resistance in places under threat of extractive industries- places of cause. This imagery follows natural and human influenced landscapes: river-lines, treelines, road-lines, pipe-lines. These are the CauseLines from which we score. The intention of these scores is to invite processes of belonging, clarity of place. Not creating meaning but finding the meaning that already exists. The scores are to be interpreted as song, as dance, as story. It is from the complexity of interpretation, subjectivity of improvisation, that we begin dialogue around how we establish our practice of place. We are creating a leporello using the imagery of CauseLines that will serve as a score from which we facilitate a subjective process of interpretation and generating meaning. It is a prompt to begin investigation, a catalyst to evolve the way we hold ourselves responsible to the places where we live. Our intentions are to host a series of facilitated workshops around this score, engaging communities in studies of improvisational movement, sound making, meaning making. Cultivating, through these actions, a sense of belonging, of resistance and protection of the places that we belong to.

In an effort to cultivate awareness, respect, honor and protection for land and water, the work of Winter Count engages with environments under current threat by extractive industry. In 2016, members of Winter Count gathered audio and video at the Missouri and Cannonball Rivers, Lake Oahe, the DAPL route, the Bakken oil fields, and Lake Sakakawea. This work is ongoing, for everyone, and is accessible to the public through online platforms, museum and gallery exhibitions, screenings and public performances. * Winter Count members: Cannupa Hanska Luger, Dylan McLaughlin, Nicholas Galanin, Merritt Johnson, and Ginger Dunnill cannupahanska.com

So Long, Farewell: Extinction in the Anthropocene Era Illustrated Playing Cards (2017)

DAISY PATTON

So Long, Farewell: Extinction in the Anthropocene Era is a playable memory card game consisting of animals from North and South America labeled as extinct in the wild or critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as of December 2014. Mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and the beleaguered amphibians are represented; even with restricting the species group to those five, there are 320 species featured in the game. Memory, also known as Concentration, is a game in which cards are placed face down and players try to find matched pairs by turning over two at a time, remembering their placement and name. With over 600 cards total, So Long, Farewell is unwieldy and virtually unplayable without deep concentration and focus — something desperately needed now to stave off calamity. Using a traditional children’s game underscores the fragility and overwhelming devastation of the mass extinction we are approaching (and causing). Furthermore, several of these species are already forgotten or barely known. The illustrations are based on actual color photographs, fragmentary descriptions, and in several instances, their specific coloration is entirely unknown. The act of playing the game highlights the enormous task at hand to prevent these mass extinctions, including potentially our own. Instructions So Long, Farewell follows the same rules as Memory — each player flips over two cards a turn to try and make a pair. If they succeed, they can remove the cards from the table, place them in one of the boxes, and take another turn. If they do not match, the cards must be turned face down once more and the next player gets to play, remembering the location of the mismatched cards. The game is over when there are no cards left on any of the tables. Artwork courtesy of K Contemporary. daisypatton.com

BECKY WAREING STEELE

Utopia: A new society for all Diorama-based installation (2017, on-going) The concept of utopia has been explored for centuries and is often used as an adjective in reference to an impracticable scheme. Utopia: A new society for all is an exploration into the formation of a new society that exists conceptually and physically as dioramabased installation art. This is an experiment in artistic practice, civics, and communal living. It is Steeleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aim to show that utopia is not an impracticable scheme, but an attainable future. As an inclusive society everyone is welcome to join Utopia. Once a citizenship application is received, Utopia Founder and Facilitator Steele, begins the process of creating a miniature representative of each citizen along with an Earthship home. Utopia embraces the constructs of sustainable living practices and minimal reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels. As a truly communal society, issues and concerns are addressed through votes cast by citizens. The modern world and its push for a virtual reality to escape everyday life is working against our instinctive need for community. Utopia citizens are encouraged to connect in the physical world, share skills and services, and imagine an alternative future with their fellow Utopians. It is the aim of the project to cultivate a community that grows not just in installation form, but in real life. Utopia Citizenship Applications: beckywareingsteele.com/utopia

subVert: Denver Shopping carts, plywood, soil, plants (2017)

TORY TEPP

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I view my art practice as a form of alchemy. Using the most basic of physical materials, crafted upon the crucible of community, through creative, ecological and educational processes, I evoke social and environmental change. By re-forging the most basic connections we have to our environment, both physical and metaphysical, through the use of soil, seed, sound, water, and light, we can broaden and deepen our understanding of the relationships we have to each other as humans and to all the systems of this earth, from which we have become estranged, the other. Towards this end, I employ any materials and methodologies necessary from poetry to science to play. The seed of this art practice lies embedded firmly in the idea that the primal nature of creativity has the power to enrich and enlighten our fertile minds beyond the capacity and confines of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unbalanced social structures and power hierarchies. Hands playing in the garden together are a catalyst for change. A garden reclaiming a parking lot is a call for revolution.â&#x20AC;? For LAND TRUST, Tepp has constructed 5 mobile gardens that will be hosted by various local organizations, including El Centro Humanitario, Denver Homeless Out Loud at the Beloved Community tiny home park, and Eddie Maestas Community Garden. Through this project, Tepp contemplates accessibility to land and land ownership as essential human rights, and creates opportunities for non-landowners to fulfill the human need to grow something in the dirt. By utilizing materials and debris readily found in urban locations, these mobile gardens serve as prototypes that can easily be replicated by anyone. torytepp.net

ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAND LIBRARY

Rocky Mountain Land Library Library Installation (2017) The Rocky Mountain Land Library holds a collection of over 35,000 curated books, and are in the process of building the nation’s first “residential” library – a space for lifelong learners, creators, artists, scientists, makers, and scholars where you can literally stay overnight. Headquartered at historic 60-acre Buffalo Peaks Ranch in South Park, it is the first of a series of land-study centers stretching from the Headwaters of the South Platte River to the plains and confluence of metro-Denver. Rocky Mountain Land Library’s primary mission is connecting people to the natural world - a non-advocacy facilitating objective aided by a broad range of naturalist, land art, homesteading, urban gardening, and other land/nature-themed books. Displacement from the natural world is truly at the heart of so much of the larger conversation of human interaction and inclusion/exclusion, artifice, and a challenge to our governing consensus reality. We need to learn from and live much lighter on the land if we hope to thrive in the future. The need for places of quiet thought, creativity, and active community involvement will only grow as our population and our environmental concerns increase. Now is the time to continue building a network of place-based learning centers in service to land and community. We encourage participants to make new connections to the land and to each other by slowing down, picking up a book, and starting a conversation. landlibrary.wordpress.com

Ryan Feddersen • Coyote Stories. Mourning Dove, and Jay Miller, 1990 • Interventions: Native American Art for Far-flung Territories. Ostrowitz, Judith, 2009 • FeminIsm and Contemporary Art: the Revolutionary Power of Women’s Laughter, Isaak, Jo Anna, 1997 • Passages in Modern Sculpture, Krauss, Rosalind E., 2007 • Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 • The Treaty of Fort Wise of 1861 •