Site-Specific Art

A collaborative effort of the UC  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Rare, and the University of California, Human/Nature pairs environmental artists with UNESCO World Heritage sites, allowing each to serve mini-residencies and site specific works exploring the relationship between human cultural production, community life, and ecological change.  The eight projects will synthesize modern art and design with traditional regional art forms and modes of relating to the environment.  Ideally the works as a whole will spark open dialogue about the ways in which humans perceive and value landscape and biodiversity and will help build a model of collaboration between artists and local residents.

The individual projects will stand as hybrids:  blends of contemporary art and traditional materials, global concerns with local experience and human needs.  Installation artist Marcos Ramirez ERRE, for example, works to build on a project that explores the effects of hydroelectric power generation on a community in Yunnan, China.  The Three Parallel Rivers project incorporates plasma screens into a traditionally-constructed household wall, which depict aspects of life depending on the position of the viewer.  In a work inspired by Waterton Glacier International Peace Park on the border of the US and Canada, sculptor Dario Robleto worked with geologists to capture the landscape as the glaciers disappear, and plans to use the work as a way of exploring time, cyclical experience, and the tension of suspension and flow. 

The eight projects will go on exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego beginning 17 August 2008, followed by an appearance at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive beginning 25 February 2009, with plans for a later national tour.