We eat dirt. This is not a joke or a dare. Rather, fruit and vegetable plants possess the remarkable ability, with the aid of external features including water and sunlight, to convert soil to food. Considering this ability we also eat place – we literally consume some of the material constituting the location where the produce that we eat matured. In a very real sense we are not just what we eat, we progressively become the land or place where our food grew. These systems redistribute and transform matter and energy in seemingly simple but paradoxically complex ways. When Work is Play reflects on this by symbolically alluding to the myriad relationships and interconnections. Like actual systems, When Work is Play is influenced by its surroundings – the falling of rain, the wind blowing or the sun shining – all of this is accomplished with ease, without effort. Nature does not work, it plays.
When Work is Play (2017)
Bottled preserves made from produce from the artist’s garden, bricklaying line, inflatable pools, concrete bricks, soil, water, plastic bowls, environmental exchanges. Installation
