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Heysen Sculpture Biennial – March 2016
Title: Genially Modified Crop Dimension: Approximately 14 metres X 14 metres GM crop consisted of 198 individual ‘plants’ in a 14 row grid, with each plant being approximately 1.5 metre high and arranged 1 metre apart. Visitors to the crop were able to walk between the plants. Half the plants were ‘pod plants’ made from papier-mâché by Ian Hamilton and half the plants ‘remote plants’ were made from discarded technologies by John Hayward. Each plant was an individual unique entity. The ‘plants’ were inserted into holes 5 cm diameter and 30 cm deep. At the opening of the Heysen biennial Hayward and Hamilton did two performances in which the crop was 'sprayed' by clone gardeners. |
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With increasing human intervention into the natural world, in farming and in cropping, and the impact of climate change, there is no telling what strange manifestations of plant and animal life will emerge in the future.
To paraphrase a passage from one of Hamilton’s books:
How long would it be before there would be nothing left to remind anyone of what had been, the land become just one more victim to progress, with nothing at all, apart from some brief mention in ancient documents hidden away in obscure library reference sections, to remind anyone of what had been; how long before people realised that what they had done to the land had no real or lasting economic foundation, failing to understand that their dream crops would eventually succumb to a returning bush that would, in some undreamed variation of what had been there in the first place, reclaim the land?
GM crop was a large-scale artwork that used humour and unlikely forms in response to contemporary environmental issues.
Images on this page by Peter Lindon, Leo Davis and John Hayward
