Ego Eco, environmental art for collective consciousness

November 6, 2013

The Ego Eco, environmental art for collective consciousness exhibition was curated by Allison Town and Emily Tyler for the Begovich Gallery at California State University Fullerton, which featured to work of 13 artists. I participated on a variety of levels during my 5 week residency there. During the first 2 weeks i completed the Traveling SeedBomb dress and assembled the Urban Foragers series and staged a public intervention which was filmed and shown along side the Traveling SeedBomb dress in the gallery. The 3 Urban Foragers were at the opening reception and i was also on hand to talk about …

Urban Forages, a communal meal

November 5, 2013

The Urban Foragers got together for the first time as a group to share a communal meal made from the food sources they each carry in their self sufficient dresses. The Mobile Garden Dress, aka Madame Jardin, The Nomadik Harvest Dress, aka Miss Cornucopia and the new kid on the block, The Traveling SeedBomb Dress, aka Agent SeedBomb got together at California State University Fullerton for the Ego Eco exhibition at the Begovich Gallery. The day began with the dresses walking around campus and interacting with students about sustainable food practices and also promoting the exhibiton. They then settled into …

Agent SeedBomb

November 2, 2013

Agent SeedBomb is the name of the character who wears the Traveling SeedBomb Dress; an eco agent-provocateur with good humour and style, advocating for self-sufficiency through food independence and sustainable practices. The dress houses 50 glass vials filled with enough seed to plant over an acre of vegetables, grains and herbs to feed a family for one year, which were purchased from the Sustainable Seed Company in California. In this role, Agent SeedBomb aims to inform viewers on the identification and preservation of seeds while also engaging the community in activities such as seed bomb making and sidewalk stenciling with grains. …

Traveling SeedBomb Dress, the making of

November 2, 2013

The Traveling SeedBomb Dress is the third instalment in the Urban Foragers series. Like its predecessors, the Mobile Garden Dress and the Nomadik Harvest Dress, it functions as a garment, a shelter and a food source. As this series is about self-sufficiency, each new piece refers to a nomadic structure and for this one i chose the teepee because the shape resembles a Pine cone. I am fascinated by the ingenious ways that plants propagate their seeds and so i have tried to incorporate this into the design as much as possible. There are cone shaped pockets all around the edge, …

OC3 Challenge

October 22, 2013

I was invited by curator Emily Tyler to participate in the Orange County Great Park’s OC3 challenge exhibition with the installation of the Nomadik Harvest Dress. The theme for OC3 2013 is Sun Soil City was to inspire discussion relating to important topics of energy, agriculture, and community. Fourteen curators from prestigious Orange County institutions have been invited to transform a designated space in the Great Park Gallery. The challenge was simple — create a unique environment within the allotted space showcasing the work of one artist utilizing recycled or reused materials. It was another road trip for the NHD as the yurt structure had …

StoreFront Video

October 21, 2013

I am happy to share with you a new short documentary about the StoreFront, objects of desire project at the Lansdowne Centre in Richmond BC by Michael Sider . This video captures the performance and audience engagement parts of the project as they occurred in the mall; intersecting consumer culture and artistic interventions with gentle prodding and good humour. And of course the kids are so darned cute! Special thanks to Elisa Yon of the Richmond Public Art Program for supporting the creation of this video. Performers include, Nita Bowerman, Billy Marchenskie and myself. enjoy.

StoreFront, objects of desire

June 23, 2013

StoreFront, objects of desire was an installation at the Lansdowne Shopping Center in Richmond BC that blurred the line between consumer culture and art by displaying ephemeral objects in a retail window setting. Here dresses made from live flowers and shoes made of leaves are presented on mannequins as if for sale. By presenting simulated fashion articles within an existent shopping experience the viewer was confronted with having to negotiate the space between desire and ownership. I was on site at the mall periodically preening and adding new elements to the window displays. There were also public interventions in the shopping …

Nomadik in the Desert

June 13, 2013

The Nomadik Harvest Dress was part of the Flatlanders and Surface Dwellers exhibition at 516 Arts in Albuquerque New Mexico. Curator Lea Anderson invited me to come down and give a talk about my work and so I took the opportunity to also have the Ms Cornucopia, this time embodied by Korie Tatum, cook up a dish of Cholla cactus buds. I met with local native plant forager, Amy White, who took me out to gather plants, which was the highlight of my trip. We also went out to the desert to take some photos of the dress in it’s …

Tara Dress

April 28, 2013

For Earth Day 2013 I made a new dress, which began a whole new investigation into my Weedrobes series, namely working with the movement of the armature created for the garment. As often happens with this work ,I do not have much time to contemplate scenarios because the plants are in bloom and the window of opportunity is short. I did realize that the dress covered with fresh material and the dance with the armature where 2 separate projects, so I concentrated on making the fresh dress and the movement piece will come sometime in the future. The concept for the …

The Little Green Dress Projekt

December 8, 2012

The Little Green Dress Projekt was an outdoor installation in the Earth Art Exhibition at VanDusen Botanical Garden in the summer and fall of 2012. For a full description of the project and to view photos please visit the LGD blog. I was on site for 2 months creating these pieces and installing them one at a time in the perennial garden. They were left to change and decompose over time to emphasize the process of nature. Each dress was made for an individual woman who supplied the leaves and flowers for her dress. Four women worn their dresses for …

The Nomadik Harvest Dress

November 19, 2012

The Nomadik Harvest Dress was completed during a 2 week art residency at the McMichael Art Gallery in June 2012 in collaboration with the Fashionality Exhibition. This wearable architecture is the second piece in the Urban Foragers {house of eco drifters} series, which began with the Mobile Garden Dress. The design is based on the yurts I experienced while in Mongolia. The skirt is created from a folding bamboo fence and Willow struts sewn into a wool waistband. The traditional felt outer covering is replaced with crazy quilt of woollen sweaters, which have been shrunken and dyed. The covering contains …

Brooklyn Botanical Gala

November 17, 2012

I was invited by the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in June to make 3 dresses for their gala event celebration the opening our their new “green” Visitor Centre. I loved my time there, Brooklynites are such warm and genuine people. Bill Cunningham came to the event and wrote about it for his page in the New York Times. Big thank you to all of the staff at BBG who really supported my work and the volunteers who came and helped to sew garden cloth and moss! The models for which the dresses were tailormade were: Sonia Kwiatkowski, Nikeva Stapleton, Justine Watanabe. Merci les belles.