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ART AND THE ENVIRONMENT: EMPLOYING ART TO ENHANCE THE MESSAGE OF ECOLOGICAL DESIGN
SEPTEMBER 24, 2002--Oberlin College's Department of Art and Program for Environmental Studies have joined forces with the Ohio Arts Council and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to determine how environmental art can be used to enhance the message of ecological design.
"Art and the Environment: Employing Art to Enhance the Message of Oberlin College's Adam J. Lewis Center for Environmental Studies" will feature presentations of work by prominent environmental artists Patrick Clancy, Buster Simpson, and Meg Webster on October 6 at 1:30 p.m. in the Lewis Center.
Patrick Clancy is a multimedia artist specializing in interactive installations and videos. His recent work includes a video at Banff Center in Canada that responds to changing weather conditions.
Buster Simpson is an environmental activist and artist with vast experience dealing with diverse community groups in the creation of public art. A current project is the redesign of Vine Street in Seattle, Washington, where catchment systems for buildings and street runoff become public sculpture.
Meg Webster has a long history of creating earthworks, gardens, and fountains meant to raise people's awareness of their natural surroundings. Her projects use plants, earth, and water to engage the viewers' visual, auditory, and olfactory senses.
The presentations will follow a two-day planning charrette conducted to identify ways to employ art to increase the power of the message embodied in the Lewis Center. Designed to be a teaching laboratory for Oberlin students and visitors, the Lewis Center's most notable features include a "living machine" that treats and recycles waste water, a large rooftop photovoltaic collector, materials and mechanical systems that allow the Lewis Center to achieve energy efficiencies well above those of other comparable buildings, and a landscape that emphasizes agricultural utility, minimizes energy and chemical inputs, and fosters high biodiversity. Environmental artist Don Harvey, Emeritus Professor, The Mary Schiller Myers School of Art, The University of Akron, will coordinate the charrette.
Media Contact: Scott Wargo
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