#Very productive first day of “We Cultivate Hope” Exhibition installation | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nataliehegert · 6 years ago

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The “native” vegetation of the South Plains seems primarily to consist of pricklies, stickers, and pokeys: plants that grab you, stab you, and don’t let go. These tough weeds evolved to cling virulently to passing ruminants and spread like crazy, but they’re a torment for humans, our clothes and tender bare skin. I’m convinced that goatheads, for instance, are tiny manifestations of pure evil.

While traveling through California in 1919, the barb of the cholla inspired London-born author and photographer J. Smeaton Chase to denounce the cactus with this memorable quip: “If the plant bears any helpful or even innocent part in the scheme of things on this planet, I should be glad to hear of it.” If he’d paused to observe the cactus in more detail, he might have noticed the desert rats and birds that take refuge in the cholla’s spiny fortress. Chase’s quote exemplifies a Western attitude about plants, and about nature in general, that frames them as either antagonistic or beneficent. Plants are categorized as “helpful,” “useful,” “beautiful,” “rare,” etc., or, if they are none of those things, they’re just “weeds.” People have cultivated or eradicated plants according to their place on that spectrum — culinary, medicinal, or aesthetic. With the advent of capitalism came the “cash crop”: plants as commodities.

Humans have inadvertently tracked seeds and spores around on their boots, and spread noxious weeds to different continents on boats. They’ve chopped down diverse forests to plant vast fields of one single crop. All of these levels of human intervention have had the effect of diminishing the diversity of species on the planet, and contributing to the next “great extinction” powered by human activity.

Artist J Eric Simpson grew up in the midst of a monoculture, on a farm just outside of Lubbock, Texas, growing cotton and corn. After attending grad school at the University at Buffalo, New York, Simpson — an alumnus of the Land Arts of the American West program at Texas Tech — made his way back to the family farm, where he currently “daylights.” In his art, he deploys the materials and tools of industrial agriculture to critique the “current mode of crop production that implements an anthropocentric agency over the land.”

Simpson’s work combines the keen eye of a naturalist, the sharp mind of a researcher, the activist impulse of social practice, and the immersive monumentality of installation art. In a recent series of performative paintings, all entitled A Painting for Monsanto, Simpson set up canvases out on the vast, flat cotton fields of the farm (pictured at top), mixed various herbicides and pesticides, and proceeded to use an industrial sprayer to apply the “paint.” The result is monochromatic paintings in a yellow that’s somehow simultaneously sickly and vivid.

As luck would have it, my yard got sprayed the very day I went to visit Simpson at his studio. I asked the college boy who came unannounced to dispense the herbicide what was in the stuff he was spraying. Some kind of general broad-leaf weed killer, he mumbled. It made my goatheads shrivel up and turn brown. But their cruel spikes were still left in the dirt. The whole exercise seemed utterly pointless to me.

“The true product is the weed,” Simpson pointed out, describing the cyclical nature of the relationship between herbicide-resistant, genetically modified cottonseeds and the “superweeds” that develop resistance to the herbicides. Of course, both the cottonseeds and the herbicides are the intellectual property of the multinational agro-chemical companies that sell them to the farmer.

That evening, Simpson’s studio, which is in one of the live-work spaces in the Charles Adams Studio Project (CASP) in Lubbock, was still set up with the installation he showed at the First Friday Art Trail the weekend before. Each sculpture was grounded by a little patch of dirt. A pump that was hooked up to a length of clear plastic tubing sent a blue liquid from an herbicide container into one of Simpson’s paintings, a naturalistic rendition of a generic bottle of Roundup, painted using Monsanto’s genetically modified cottonseed as paint medium. The room was suffused with a pink glow, courtesy of greenhouse UV grow lamps.

There was a shelf displaying several pages of heavily redacted emails, drawn from the highly publicized trial that ordered Monsanto to pay a California groundskeeper $289 million for his cancer caused by repeated exposure to Roundup. The emails demonstrate that Monsanto was well aware of the carcinogenic effects of glyphosate, a chemical used in their herbicidal products. They tried to cover up the facts by ghostwriting sections in scientific papers, a fact that seems to also implicate researchers who would be willing to “edit and sign off” on sections essentially written by Monsanto. During First Friday, I watched as Lubbock locals filed past the emails, and nearly every person responded to the exhibit. This is something they relate to.

“There were only four agro-chemical companies controlling 91% of all cottonseed sales in the U.S.,” Simpson told me. “And it’s even less than that now, because they’re all merging with each other.” The German multinational firm Bayer acquired Monsanto earlier this year, while Dow and Dupont merged in 2017. Even without the mergers, these corporations are intricately intermixed due to cross-licensing agreements of genetic traits between them, which creates an oligopoly or cartel-like system. These mega-companies hold extraordinary, pervasive power over this region. “So, in a way,” Simpson says, “the strain is put on the farmer who becomes a bystander to all the ‘big decisions’ happening in the world of bio-technology. The power [that farmers] once had, a diverse market from which to buy products from for instance, is all but depleted. For instance, try to find a local dealer for non-GMO cottonseed. I assure you it is very difficult to do.” He picked up a transgenic cottonseed from where a pile of them were scattered on a video monitor. It was bright and unnaturally blue: about the same color, size, and shape as a blueberry-flavored Jelly Belly. I thought fleetingly about the proprietary blue meth from Breaking Bad.

As pointed out in an earlier Glasstire review of Simpson’s work, using a piece of heavily protected intellectual property in an artwork is pretty gutsy. Though it is extremely unlikely Monsanto (now Bayer) would pursue a lawsuit against an artist who used a scattering of seeds in an installation, the implication is present. (More troubling is the work by Simpson’s collaborator in the exhibition reviewed, Caleb Lightfoot, who made a video of himself in a Bayer greenhouse while an employee of the company.) In a town that is essentially run by Big Ag and the scientific research institutions that enable it, that’s no trivial matter.

Simpson clearly doesn’t kowtow to the powers that be in Lubbock, but he isn’t an antagonist, either. He mindfully emphasizes that he’s not against the farmer, or the scientists, or even against the corporations. “I know personally some people who work for these companies,” he said. “From my experience, these people are not gaining any personal power over the farmer. Nor do they want the farmer to fail. In fact, just the opposite. They are doing intense research to help the farmer succeed.”

So what does he see as the future for the farm? “Realistically, we can’t go back to a time of agrarian subsistence-level farming,” he says. But we urgently need to invest in devising and developing sustainable practices. He has faith that science will help us reach that point, and that art can help us envision it. Simpson has been working on a sculpture that would collect rainwater and solar energy, with an origami-like shape that opens up to receive rain, and closes to collect and store sunlight, distributing the water as needed through a root system. “The idea is that the sculpture would function as a ‘mother plant’ to surrounding vegetation,” he says.

As a CASP resident, Simpson has been extending his efforts out into the community, through curated exhibitions and talks. His curatorial endeavors so far have been outstanding. Each exhibition in the series takes one of the “four vital resources of Lubbock”—earth, wind, sun, water—as its theme. For “earth,” sculptor and ceramicist Nicolle LaMere exhibited her “dorodango” collection—perfect shiny spheres of dirt. And last month, Ryder Richards showed his phenomenal installation Empowerment, for “wind.” I’m eagerly anticipating the “sun” exhibition, opening February 1, which will have “art objects, modular solar panel kits, and floating habitat workspaces.”

With an art studio as interdisciplinary research space, Simpson creates a fruitful dynamic between the fields of art and agriculture. Because CASP studios must engage with First Friday crowds — and these crowds are diverse, not just “art folks” — they serve a public function in Lubbock, and, one would hope, can strengthen different communities through mutual understanding. Simpson wants to create an “actual dialogue” with viewers, real conversations “on topics that impact their local economies and ecologies.” “During First Friday events,” he says, “I’ve been able to meet biologists, engineers, weed scientists, farmers, bankers, you name it, all of whom are able to engage with an aspect of the work, as it was rooted in this place.” The work is “about Lubbock, for Lubbock — it’s hyper-local in that sense,” he continues, but it can be shown elsewhere. Monoculture impacts landscapes all over the world and its effects have serious consequences for the diversity and sustainability of life on this planet.

As research continues to pour in showing that our planet is under threat, that human-driven climate change will have even further-reaching effects than we’ve previously imagined, touching every level of life (even the bugs are disappearing, for God’s sake!), it becomes apparent that we, humans, are the mammalian version of weeds. We’ve spread to every corner of the planet, and wherever we are we choke out other species. We should be looking at the weeds to understand more about who we are.

The landscape here is deceptively simple. It is flat, dry, dusty, with cotton as far as you can see. But Simpson’s work identifies it as a complicated system, with far-reaching effects. The dialogue he’s opening up in this corner of Texas, while clearly addressing the lives and livelihoods of locals, concerns itself with the ways we treat landscape and agriculture and how that will affect the world and our future. There are important lessons in it for all of us.

#feature #Highlights

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3one3 · 8 years ago

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The Sequel - 792

Borussia Dormant

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s

(okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“I’m actually just hanging out with Socks. Isa didn’t put him back out with the others when I was finished with him because he was wet. Well, I should say, he didn’t put him back out when he was done giving him a full bath, which he needed because I did so much with him that he was really, really sweaty. Anyway, we’re hanging out. He gives good kisses.”

“I saw your video earlier. Was that a new horse?”

“It was Cornflakes! He’s totally wasted on Yannis.”

André slumped with relief in his car seat while Christina laughed on the other end of the phone. She posted a clip on Instagram of a chestnut jumping through a 6-jump gymnastic from about 2’6” up to 4’6”, and it was quite a feisty looking animal under her. It never occurred to the player that Yannis’ pony could jump that high or behave just like his bigger, hotter stablemates. He was worried that she was looking at another new horse. The problem with having a new barn to move into with 18 stalls was the threat that Christina would find a way to fill them all. More horses meant less time for him and less time for herself, by André’s logic. He was about to call Peter to verify that his crew was finished removing all the surface footing from the ring, or that they’d be finished with it the next day, Friday. OTTO Sport was sending someone over Friday to survey and order everything needed to get started installing their product on Monday.

“How come you were jumping Cornflakes?” he inquired of his wife, who ignored his silence in favor of talking to Socks. The Dutch stallion was trying to figure out where the molasses cookie was hiding. He knew she had one. He could smell it. It kept moving from different hands to different pockets. Christina was in his stall with him. Her 11-stall barn was relatively quiet but for the music on the stereo. It was drizzly out, but not enough to keep the horses in. She was already done riding for the day, Stefanie rode her pair earlier too, the Hazards weren’t coming, and Kyle was off. Isandro was loading up the ATV bed with bales of hay to bring over from storage to start readying the horses’ stalls for the night. They would have hay and full water buckets waiting for them in their freshly bedded stalls, but wouldn’t get their dinner until later, after grooming and feet picking. Christina was dragging her feet about leaving the barn for the day because she didn’t feel like showering and getting pretty to go to the auction exhibition with Juan. She still really wanted to go, but wished she could skip the part about getting clean and presentable first. Also Socks kept making faces at her through her office window while she was finishing up emails at her desk. To her they were “come pay attention to me” faces.

“Because it’s fun to play with ponies, and it’s something different to do, and the kids can’t ride today, and the gymnastic was already set up for Jelly Bean, Nick, and Socks. How was training?”

“It was good.” Man am I glad to hear her say she’s trying to have fun at the barn, André quickly added to himself. The rest of his wife’s visit in Dortmund was more tame than that argument they got into Tuesday morning, but it wasn’t as restorative as he’d hoped, and it was far from encouraging. Christina never shrugged off her weekend and footing induced stress. “I’m about to leave to go home and get Mama and Mausi. We’re going to the bookstore for another one of those story time things with lots of kids. I don’t know if he understands enough German to understand the story, but he likes to play with the kids after. They have a lot of toys for them, and crayons and stuff.”

“I am quite positive he doesn’t understand enough German to understand the story,” Lukas’ mom laughed. “That sounds fun though. I’m glad you find ways to get him to do stuff with other kids, because I constantly worry that he’s not getting socialized enough. I keep feeling like a bad mom because I don’t have a big network of other moms with kids for him to play with.”

“You will here, pretty girl. All my teammates have young kids. That’s one of the perks of moving from a squad with a lot of veterans to one with a lot of young players, I guess,” André suggested. “You’re going to the auction thing tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m about to go get ready. We’re going early so we can get dinner after. Want me to send you pictures of awkward erotic art?”

“I definitely want the other parents at children’s story hour to see me looking at erotic art on my phone.”

“Oh good point,” Christina laughed. She shook the molasses treat out of the sleeve of her fleece jacket and held it out for Socks, who had just about given up trying to find it. He really thought it was in her left hand, but she kept showing him that it was empty. He didn’t know it could be hidden inside her sleeve. His cute black head nodded up and down while he chewed the Oreo-sized cookie.

“Are you going home after dinner?” The footballer’s question was colored with just the whisper of unease.

“I plan to. Tomorrow is my day off from life. I pre-made my own pizza this morning so that I can spend the least amount of time possible out of bed. Don’t call me first thing in the morning with Lukas because I will not be a happy camper. Don’t even try to talk to me until after noon, at least,” his girl warned with stern seriousness. Her voice then changed completely. “Byyyye, pony. See you Saturday. Enjoy your day off outside,” she lovingly told Socks after giving him a kiss in the middle of his long face stripe. That shift in her tone made André smile to himself while he steered out of Brackel. That was the trademark sound, sort of, of the girl he fell so hard for. Her passion and her love for her equine friends and partners caught him off guard that day in Florida, just like her concern for his problem and her genuine hope to help him solve it. Those things were similar to her love for Lukas that he admired so much, but also very different in some ways. Christina didn’t have a passion for motherhood. She had a deep sense of obligation to do it as best she could, whether that was making her baby food from whole organic foods and making sure Lukas got all the recommended toys for developmental learning, or foregoing her own needs to outdo herself on his, and she did enjoy doing things for her son, but it wasn’t like the passion she had for and inspiration she drew from cultivating amazing relationships with her horses. Her face didn’t light up like the sun when she talked about being a mom. The excited energy that overflowed from her when she discussed those animals or got ready to do something with them wasn’t easy for just anyone to spot, but it was plain as day to André and he thought it adorable and precious alike, and unique to her. He never saw that quality- that consummation, almost- in any other girl.

“Have I ever told you how much I love how much you love your horses?”

“Yes, but I’ll never complain about having to hear things you love about me, if for no other reason than it would be hypocritical. I did write down 365 things I love about you and demand that you read every one.”

“Want to hear a joke?”

“No. You know what’s really sexy?”

“What?”

“The way English people say Sebastian. I just heard it on the radio. It has to be like a pretty-sounding English person though, not like Martin Brundle or any of the other people in F1. It’s no special thing when they say it.”

“Okay. Phone sex later?”

“Maybe. Call me. Spence! Lucky! Time to go!”

“Thanks for shouting in my ear,” the player said after recoiling at the cracking of Christina’s voice over the car speakers. Using the Bluetooth system meant she didn’t actually shout into his ear directly, but it was still an unpleasant noise.

“I always feel bad when I call for Spence and Lucky and Pepe comes running too and then I take them away and leave Pepe here.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t care. He wants to stay around Isa.”

“I know, but still.”

André kept his wife and his dogs company on their walk to the house. She asked some questions about what he did in training, and what the team was working on, and who was injured, and what he had for lunch. They continued to talk until her shower was running and her dirty clothes were in the laundry basket. He promised to send her pictures of Lukas playing at the bookstore and she promised not to send any pictures of artistically portrayed genitalia. Christina’s phone stayed busy while she showered. Juan texted her to say he was about to leave Cobham and intended to come over to get her, which implied he intended for her to sleep over at his place or that he would bring her home after dinner and stay the night, someone from adidas called to tell her they wanted an “emergency” meeting to show her samples of the second collection of tops and jackets bearing her name, and Natasha wanted to know how to cook skirt steak for tacos. All three got calls back regardless of the medium in which they made their inquiries, since it was easier to talk on the phone while picking clothes for the evening than typing messages.

Juan was warned that she was nowhere near being ready to leave. Adidas was informed they’d have to wait until Saturday, or Monday if they didn’t want to meet on a weekend. The rider was not giving up any part of her day off from life. Natasha was disappointed to learn that Christina’s skirt steak recipe required overnight marinating as she planned to cook it in a couple of hours. Her friend told her how to make it anyway. Choosing an outfit was much harder than answering everybody. Christina didn’t feel like wearing a dress, or sky-high heels for that matter. She didn’t feel like wearing a blazer, which was a go-to for nice-ish occasions when she didn’t wear a dress or skirt, because she hated wearing a blazer under a winter coat and there was a good chance Juan would want to walk from the exhibition to dinner so she couldn’t skip the coat. A sweater with skinny pants and boots seemed the best route to go down, but opened up countless possibilities and near infinite pairing choice. The rider decided to wait until she had no time left to choose- that the pressure of a hard deadline would make her decision easier. She went downstairs to have a snack and wait for Juan instead.

“Why is your mouth all pink and red?” he asked skeptically when she opened the door for him, before even saying hello.

“I made a pomegranate and berry smoothie,” Christina replied.

“It looks like you’ve been eating out a girl on her period.”

“Well that’s disgusting. Thanks for that visual,” she grumbled over her shoulder, having turned to head back to the kitchen and back to her all-fruit smoothie. “You couldn’t have gone with like, “sexy vampire feasting on hot guys”?”

“No. Hi Lucky, hi Spencer.” The Spaniard bent down to greet the excited terriers and then followed her. “Did you get a new tattoo?” he questioned just before she disappeared from the hallway around the corner.

“No I got kicked in the calf by my husband because he thought a straight red tackle was appropriate for playing an informal game of football with our 20-month-old son. That beautiful artwork on the back of my leg is a bruise.” The girl in the baggy tank top and boyshorts paused to show off the baseball-sized mark a little below the back of her knee. “Do you wanna read about how “revolutionary” my totally non-revolutionary horse management is?” Next to her blood red and very staining smoothie on the island counter was a magazine with an editorial about her and how she mixed old school fitness and nutrition principles with diversified training for mental health, and brand new technology. Christina adopted a policy of not reading about herself very often, but since the editorial wasn’t based on any interview she gave or even a conversation she could remember having, it piqued her interest. Suppositions about her always amused her in a disdainful sort of way. Juan looked over her shoulder at the magazine, but his interest might only have been an excuse to wrap his arms around her upper body and help himself to a tight hug. The proper greeting was fine with her, except that a snap on the sleeve of his leather jacket was embedded into her side.

“Do you really bring your own hypoallergenic bedding for the horses to every show?” His inquiry demonstrated that he was at least skimming the piece.

“No. I don’t even know if there is such a thing. I use really expensive bagged shavings though, instead of straw or the bulk loose shavings. I really hate straw and so does Tom, so if we go to a show that only provides straw, we bring our own bagged shavings. Most of the shows provide bagged shavings though,” Christina explained between sips from her extra-big straw. “I can’t decide what to wear tonight. Come upstairs and help me pick something.” She abruptly closed the periodical and chucked it near the mail pile, and then tried to walk away while still stuck in the hug. My hair is probably leaving a big wet spot on his chest, she thought. Juan wasn’t letting go of her, but he allowed her to walk.

“Wear a sexy dress and make the men at Sotheby’s even more uncomfortable.”

“I don’t feel like being considerate enough to wear a dress. A dress is work, you know. You have to remember not to sit with your legs open, or bend over too much, and it’s cold, and if it’s a tight dress then you can’t sit slumped over or there’s visible tummy bulge and stuff. Plus you have to wear heels, and that means looking out for sidewalk grates, and being mindful of shallow stairs, and-“

“Is this going to be one of those nights when you find something to complain about about everything?” the Spaniard asked dubiously once he released her from his grip. His ex-girlfriend held onto the inside of his left wrist though to tug him along toward the foyer, lest he hesitate. Her thumb and forefinger fit just between his watch and his hand. And she gave a whiny “no” in response to his question. He slowed her ability to pull him so that he could leave his shoes by the front door, so she let go and went upstairs without him to get a head start on the closet. The lead didn’t last very long. The player was on her heels again by the time she was walking by her bed, and it was his turn to grab her by the wrist. The only place he wanted to lead her was bed.

“Juaaaaniiiiiiin,” she complained as she found herself dragged to his lap. He sat at the foot of the bed and corralled her between his legs with his left arm around her body, this time from the front. “Whatever you have in mind, we don’t have time for,” Christina pouted. “And you’re gonna make me spill my drink and stain my carpet.”

“Well what were you doing all that time between when I said I was coming and now? It doesn’t take that long to blend fruit.”

“I was reading the next in the near-daily articles in the German news about why Schü and Mario don’t play,” she admitted disappointedly. André never acknowledged them, and never brought them to her attention, but stories from the likes of Bild, Die Welt, and WAZ still made their way to her eyes. Google, Twitter, and Instagram were all programmed to bring her news related to her interests, and her own last name was counted as an interest by their algorithms. They knew she posted content from Signal Iduna Park. They tracked her search history, which was riddled with her attempts to find photos of her horses and thus photos of herself. She was constantly bombarded with news she didn’t want to know about.

“How many games has it been?” Juan questioned curiously. He could always be relied upon not to bristle too much when Christina felt the need to discuss problems to do with the other player in her life.

“Just one. He sat the whole 90 minutes last weekend, but he played the whole game before that and made an assist for Marco, and he started the game before that too and scored a goal, so...I don’t know. They lost that game he scored in but it wasn’t his fault. He was, objectively, the best player in the game. I don’t know why he’s not playing. They didn’t even play well without him last weekend. They barely hung on to a 1-0. I guess the papers just like the “World Cup goal duo can’t get in the team” line.”

“In my experience, unless it’s a direct interview with a player or manager, the papers don’t say anything accurate or meaningful, cariña,” he reminded while she pulled on her straw, her lips still in a frown around it. “They have space to fill so they have to make news if there isn’t any.”

“I know, but it turns the fans’ opinion too. It makes the people who already hate that the club signed Schü and Mario feel vindicated in their vocal opposition, and it makes the undecided people start to question it. I hate it. I hate it for him. At least when he didn’t play at Chelsea he was so far under the radar that nobody really cared. How do you stand it when everyone is writing about you, and hypothesizing, and concluding? I know you know what it’s like.” Christina moved out of his arm to sit next to him on the bed, and leaned over on his shoulder with a figurative thud. I don’t even know why I’m talking about this, she realized while she waited for an answer. I read that editorial about me to forget all the stuff written about boyfriend, and now I’m back to that again.

“I just ignore. He does too. He knows better. I doubt the fans are on his back in the stadium.” The Spaniard had to shrug the suddenly downtrodden rider off his shoulder so that he could take his jacket off, and he patted her knees after folding it atop the black satin comforter that was in place specifically for her “day off from life” plans. “Come on. Show me the clothes options.”

Christina arranged hangers around her dressing room with all the tops and sweaters she was willing to consider, and lined up the footwear choices, which included “dressy” wedge sneakers, low-heeled boots of varying heights, and two pairs of “manly” flats. Juan picked a white collared shirt, black pants, and knee-high brown boots, and she told him there was no way she was dressing as a pirate. Next he suggested a finely ribbed black turtleneck sweater with high-waisted skinny pants and booties with a stacked wooden heel. That was rejected on the basis that it would make it look like there was no torso between her waist and her chest, and that she had no sense of proportion. Three more ensembles were debated and discarded, and eventually the girl with too many clothes put on a short, shiny black blouson-top dress with a dropped waist and lots of shirring to make it easy and comfortable. The V-neck wasn’t low enough to require any special undergarment considerations, and the billowy sleeves made it feel like her thin cotton dressing gown. The footballer said it was cute, and she spiffed up the cheap dress with expensive bling and comfortable booties. He teased her and irritated her and got in the way the entire time she did her hair and makeup, and then they were off to his place so he could change too.

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