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Visit EXPO CHICAGO 202 and experience the Floating Museum, The Garden on display at the Compass Rose Navy Pier April 13 – April 16.
FLOATING MUSEUM, The Garden 2022
polyester blend fabric, dye sublimation, air blowers, hardware
30’x22’x12
The Garden is a monumental remembering of specific plant histories and the ways they continually
shape the world. Profoundly linked to the empire, cultivation and trade, this work uses the metaphor
of the garden to have conversations associated with movement, belonging, food, colonialism,
capitalism, growth, and violence. The word, diaspora — ‘dia! meaning across and #spora! meaning
scatter – itself has botanical roots. The inflatable monument features a banyan tree, peppercorn,
poppy, clove, cotton, and rice. The pattern is an amalgamation of botanical drawings of ‘useful
plants’ first published in 1842.
The sculpture is an exercise in collaborative monument making and responds to and commemorates
plant histories as a framework to contest contemporary globalism’s speed, dislocation, and endless
churning. In recognizing the ways in which ‘free’ trade, and monoculture of plants have impacted the
diasporas of the world while taking time to reflect on movement of plants and people, our project
aims to build a conversational structure and form.
With an evident disruption of our global supply chains resulting from the pandemic, wars, and
climate change, how might we make different choices which would diminish neocolonial tendencies
for our future?
This work is a collaboration with Kushala Vora and is made possible with the generous support of
Joyce Foundation and Illinois Art Council.
Floating Museum is a non-profit arts collective that creates new models exploring relationships
between art, community, public space, and institutions. Using site-responsive art, design, and
programming we explore the potential in these relationships, considering the infrastructure, history
and aesthetics of a space.