Site set-aside

Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
Autumn 2017 - ongoing

Site set-aside (2017-ongoing) is third in a sequence of Living Culture Initiative artworks, including The Beanfield (2006-08) and The Virtual Pasture (2009-11), located outside the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State Univeristy. For this work, I removed the plot from agricultural production and planted a mix of native Ohio grasses and forbs (including, for example, goldenrod, purple aster, and wild indigo) to establish a permanent, carbon storage bank and pollinator sanctuary.

The project’s title, Site set-aside, refers to a U.S. agricultural policy that once required farmers to dedicate a percentage of their acreage to conservation. The plantings recall an ecological landscape that existed long before the OSU campus was situated on farmland at the northern edge of the city of Columbus. Yet, Site set-aside is not nostalgic for what is gone nor does it imagine paradise lost. Instead, the artwork projects forward and out towards our ever-becoming world.