Gardeners for a Geologic Afterlife (Spring)
Installation with plants, sculptures made from bio-based materials and found objects, containers and structures commonly found in gardens
April 22 - Mai 4, 2024
Goethe-Institut Boston
Erin Woodbrey’sGardeners for a Geologic Afterlifeis a site-specific installation realized for the Goethe-Institut’s 2024 170 Residency Program.Developed in this winter before residency,the installation mirrors the choreography of a gardener as they prepare for the growing season, weaving together sculpture and gardening practices to form a spatial narrative of a garden in spring.
Inspired byancient methods and mythologies of gardening and agriculture and a contemporary movement to rethink cycles of waste and consumption,Gardeners for a Geologic Afterlifelooks both backward and forward, seeking to find new ways of imagining our material lives. The project’s individual components comprise found objects, living plants and natural elements such as soil, clay, wood, leaves, and stone, as well as novel materials, including bioplastic and substrates composed of paper pulp, fiber grown in the garden, seashells, seaweed, eggs, coffee grounds, and other waste matter. Elements of experimentation, quasi-scientific investigation, and chance appear across the installation. Toggling between states of rumination and speculation, Woodbrey’s installation reads as the relic of a past garden situated in an imagined future. Bearing witness to time, place and ecosystems, the work presents as a site for garden of the future, where tools of the past return from obsolescence to propose new material possibilities.
Opening
Thursday, April 25, 6-8 PM
Open Studio/Plant Exchange
Saturday, April 27, 12-4pm
Finissage with snacksand a performance by Erin Woodbrey and Sarah Williams of Aesthetically Complex Pies
Saturday, May 4, 11am-1pm