Living Artworks
Plant graffiti - artist call to invite the public to co-author climate action artworks
Living Artworks is an ongoing collaborative series developed by Sylvia Grace Borda and J.Keith Donnelly (B+D) to encourage the public to undertake plant graffiti. Living artworks are about inviting the public to co-author and create new spaces where plants form an aesthetic design – whether these are arranged flower pots to planting flora in arrangements on the ground that can be seen from a raised position. A cool thing about working to make flora patterns or beds is that you can make them anywhere where you are allowed to dig and where the soil allows – in your front yard, in your backyard, along a fence, lawn, and with permissions schools, parks, public trees, civic centres, street corners, bus stops, etc.
Besides looking gorgeous themselves, flora beds or living artworks can influence and have climate impact while making you and the environment feel better. The introduction of plants helps boost human health (immune system) to aiding in cleansing the air and offering shelter and increasing biodiversity.
In inviting the public to co-author living artworks – the artists invite the public to create a flora shape and to document it. B+D have a set of flora shapes that help distinguish their authored forms. To the human eye, symmetry is captivating, to B+D use the circle as a “perfect shape” that is easy to draw out and to plant. Living artwork (circular forms) look especially striking in urban areas. Planted flora inside a round bed can be a single, color, a random mix – it is up to the participant to select what is best for their local area.
Geometric Pattern
B+D encourage the use of geometry. This zig-zag flower pattern is simple to achieve, and is visually effective. B+D know when striving for geometry, you need to create edges and the best way to achieve this is by the placement of simple low cost tools such as sticks or pebbles on on the ground to help stake out the pattern. Then one can plant carefully within the borders of the new plant graffiti pattern.
B+D’s work in about engaging the public (youth, seniors, farmers, teachers, persons with disabilities, minorities, just about everyone, to be part of and to participate fully) in addressing the climate crisis through an interaction of co-creating their first flora artwork creations under the guidance and mentorship of the artists.
Borda and Donnelly are interested in co-authoring flora projects to illustrate that land rehabilitation in a time of climate change and with the use of social media to satellite monitoring doesn’t need to be expensive or nor an impossible task to accomplish. By undertaking plant graffiti – the establishment of designed and arranged flora in an unexpected areas of urban and rural spaces – we can all create living artworks that improve our environment for human and non-human actors. B+D’s actions are about showing us how to future-proof communities and ourselves from evolving climate issues such as excess rain to heat domes.
Creation and documentation of 'living artworks' visually reinforce the critical nature of earth systems and gives communities abilities to illustrate their self-monitor on mobile phones through Google Earth how native flora plantings can increase and restore local ecosystems. 'Living artworks' and plant graffiti processes are templates & calls for actions for global communities to plant their own trees in flora patterns that can be recorded and shared on social media to being tracked if planted at a scale of more than 20 meters in diameter by satellite. Such processes can give communities extended climate &biodiversity monitoring tools and others to communicate their achievements and to progress new ways forward. It's a fact that plants help amplify water and clean air resources and that we as citizens can harness satellite as well as earth observation artworks to help us understand our immediate and future impacts in improving places that we call home.
Besides looking gorgeous themselves, flora beds or living artworks can influence and have climate impact while making you and the environment feel better. The introduction of plants helps boost human health (immune system) to aiding in cleansing the air and offering shelter and increasing biodiversity.
In inviting the public to co-author living artworks – the artists invite the public to create a flora shape and to document it. B+D have a set of flora shapes that help distinguish their authored forms. To the human eye, symmetry is captivating, to B+D use the circle as a “perfect shape” that is easy to draw out and to plant. Living artwork (circular forms) look especially striking in urban areas. Planted flora inside a round bed can be a single, color, a random mix – it is up to the participant to select what is best for their local area.
Geometric Pattern
B+D encourage the use of geometry. This zig-zag flower pattern is simple to achieve, and is visually effective. B+D know when striving for geometry, you need to create edges and the best way to achieve this is by the placement of simple low cost tools such as sticks or pebbles on on the ground to help stake out the pattern. Then one can plant carefully within the borders of the new plant graffiti pattern.
B+D’s work in about engaging the public (youth, seniors, farmers, teachers, persons with disabilities, minorities, just about everyone, to be part of and to participate fully) in addressing the climate crisis through an interaction of co-creating their first flora artwork creations under the guidance and mentorship of the artists.
Borda and Donnelly are interested in co-authoring flora projects to illustrate that land rehabilitation in a time of climate change and with the use of social media to satellite monitoring doesn’t need to be expensive or nor an impossible task to accomplish. By undertaking plant graffiti – the establishment of designed and arranged flora in an unexpected areas of urban and rural spaces – we can all create living artworks that improve our environment for human and non-human actors. B+D’s actions are about showing us how to future-proof communities and ourselves from evolving climate issues such as excess rain to heat domes.
Creation and documentation of 'living artworks' visually reinforce the critical nature of earth systems and gives communities abilities to illustrate their self-monitor on mobile phones through Google Earth how native flora plantings can increase and restore local ecosystems. 'Living artworks' and plant graffiti processes are templates & calls for actions for global communities to plant their own trees in flora patterns that can be recorded and shared on social media to being tracked if planted at a scale of more than 20 meters in diameter by satellite. Such processes can give communities extended climate &biodiversity monitoring tools and others to communicate their achievements and to progress new ways forward. It's a fact that plants help amplify water and clean air resources and that we as citizens can harness satellite as well as earth observation artworks to help us understand our immediate and future impacts in improving places that we call home.
Living Artworks
Plant graffiti - small-mid size scale
Plant graffiti - small-mid size scale
Living artworks - small scale (circular plant graffiti forms) – under 1 meter
These plantings can use annuals +/ perennials. They are easy to accomplish with artists setting up plant and see exchanges in communities to help assist in creating low cost artworks. Pansies, of note, are surprisingly hearty in cold weather They’ll survive a frost, bouncing back from even single-digit temperatures. Whether pansies are planted or other compact flora - these plants are great first defences to help sequester carbon. The artists, B+D, help communities learn how to read an environment from small to large flora in terms of carbon sequestration impacts and climate mitigation. |
Different ways to undertake plant graffiti involve circling large plants or using decaying flora as the base.
Plant graffiti can also involve changing how we perceive waste. Using tires can act as an insulator and can assist in the long-term blooming and/or wintering of plants across the winter months. Another form of circular planting - inorganic - is illustrated here to the right for reference.
Below a zig-zag geometric planting has been configured by using simple sticks to help stake out the flora pattern. The use of a single flowering plant helps define this design. |
Living Artworks
Plant graffiti - public artwork scale: large
Plant graffiti - public artwork scale: large
Fig Tree Circle, 8 meter diameter, Kuku, Horowhenua, Aotearoa New Zealand (2022)
Professor Huhana Smith is a contemporary Maori artist, academic and Head of School of Art, Whiti o Rehua School of Art, College of Creative Arts at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand - forwarded the following image above to show her participation, plant graffiti, to plant a tree circle living artwork food forest. She selected to use fig trees for her tree circle.
Of note figs were one of the first crops cultivated by humans and have long been valued for their nutrition, flavour and versatility. Figs are not cultivated widely in New Zealand, as they are both fragile and have a short shelf life as a fresh fruit. For many growing a fig tree in New Zealand is the best way to have access to an annual, or biannual, supply of fruit, to be enjoy freshed or preserved.
Professor Huhana Smith states as part of her university work and art making processes that she’s interested in further contextualizing and conceptualizing Indigenous perspectives that support Nature and believes plant graffiti offers new ways for the public to understand Nature care.
Professor Huhana Smith is a contemporary Maori artist, academic and Head of School of Art, Whiti o Rehua School of Art, College of Creative Arts at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand - forwarded the following image above to show her participation, plant graffiti, to plant a tree circle living artwork food forest. She selected to use fig trees for her tree circle.
Of note figs were one of the first crops cultivated by humans and have long been valued for their nutrition, flavour and versatility. Figs are not cultivated widely in New Zealand, as they are both fragile and have a short shelf life as a fresh fruit. For many growing a fig tree in New Zealand is the best way to have access to an annual, or biannual, supply of fruit, to be enjoy freshed or preserved.
Professor Huhana Smith states as part of her university work and art making processes that she’s interested in further contextualizing and conceptualizing Indigenous perspectives that support Nature and believes plant graffiti offers new ways for the public to understand Nature care.
Ethiopia
Plant graffiti - public artwork scale: trackable in Google Earth by satellite
Plant graffiti - public artwork scale: trackable in Google Earth by satellite
B+D partnered with agro-pastoralists, farmer-herders, in rural Ethiopia to help establish a tree nursery. A set of tree saplings were used by the community to plant a set of 25 and 50 metre diameter wide plant graffiti forms (2020, 2021) in circular designs.
B+D designed this community engagement to harnessed Google Earth for community learning, enabling communities opportunities to better understand and observe climate changes and the impact of tree planting in their own backyard. This ability to monitor climate mitigation from the ground up is extremely empowering to rural and remote communities, who are often facing the impacts of climate change in isolation and often lack access to scientific tools to immediately monitor their own land.
The ability to use Google Earth as a public tool and to create 'living artworks' as observable artworks and forests from space, we hope can become a template for other global communities as well as a call to action in planting their own trees and vegetation in patterns that can be recorded by satellite. Creation of 'living artworks' can visually reinforce the critical nature of earth systems and how we care for them.
B+D designed this community engagement to harnessed Google Earth for community learning, enabling communities opportunities to better understand and observe climate changes and the impact of tree planting in their own backyard. This ability to monitor climate mitigation from the ground up is extremely empowering to rural and remote communities, who are often facing the impacts of climate change in isolation and often lack access to scientific tools to immediately monitor their own land.
The ability to use Google Earth as a public tool and to create 'living artworks' as observable artworks and forests from space, we hope can become a template for other global communities as well as a call to action in planting their own trees and vegetation in patterns that can be recorded by satellite. Creation of 'living artworks' can visually reinforce the critical nature of earth systems and how we care for them.
School plantings by ROBA students recorded by MaxmarTechnologies, Landsat-Copernicus satellite for Google Earth Living artwork (1) Concentric Circle - Gadaa design (right) https://earth.google.com/web/@7.09653655,38.79490112,2678.00599532a,279.37228323d,35y,-65.25410856h,44.99511807t,0r Living artwork (2) Concentric Circle - Gadaa design (below) https://earth.google.com/web/search/N+07.12727++E+038.82125/@7.12755878,38.82135737,2669.70157179a,217.47418638d,35y,122.94093896h,59.99481027t,0r/data=CigiJgokCTff8V_YnBxAEeJsJr__VRxAGT0NCt6GZUNAIVhAjl99XUNA |
By using an under-utilized digital media channel, Google Earth Satellite, for art – the artists and Kofele participants in Ethiopia are challenging our perspectives on how climate mitigation can combine both climate science and art together.
Ultimately the success of the project lies in Ethiopian participants using visualisation tools to understand land management in a time of climate change. Well planted and tended tree verges can assist to create productive lands with better soils and future-proof sites from climate issues such as excess rain runoff to erosion.
As much as 83% of water coming to the ground is condensed directly from the atmosphere by trees. The planting of seedling trees will help give rise to a dynamic system that can assist in carbon capture and in water restoration services. Trees act as gigantic condensing systems and are responsible for capturing water out of the air.
In the future we should ask ourselves not so much about 'How much rainfall impacts an area? But rather 'What tree cover is in your home city, village or farms?' It is a fact that trees help amplify water and clean air resources.
As much as 83% of water coming to the ground is condensed directly from the atmosphere by trees. The planting of seedling trees will help give rise to a dynamic system that can assist in carbon capture and in water restoration services. Trees act as gigantic condensing systems and are responsible for capturing water out of the air.
In the future we should ask ourselves not so much about 'How much rainfall impacts an area? But rather 'What tree cover is in your home city, village or farms?' It is a fact that trees help amplify water and clean air resources.