Trust Art - Dave Olsen - Bushwhick Inlet

Recycling of Life at Industrial Wastelands

A public project led by artist Dave Olsen

Project Proposal

For the duration of the performance, the site, located in the the waterways of Greenpoint, Brooklyn (the confluences of the East River and Newton Creek), will be converted into evaporation fields for sea salt harvesting. The waterways of Greenpoint, site to an underground oil spill estimated at 17-30 million gallons, is considered one of the most polluted bodies of water in North America. While the salt processed out of the water is naturally occurring, the industrial backdrop to the site cannot but remind the viewer of the variety of other material that may be present.

The evaporation process will be conducted on floating salt pans and expose the hidden material ature of the site, removing the water, and crystallizing the soluble contents. Installed at the site will be a series of 7’x12’ salt pans formed using modified barrels and rubber pond liner and waterproof fabric. Each pan will allow a small amount of water to be thinly spread across the surface. In the heat of the summer, the sun will evaporate the water, depositing the salts and minerals dissolved therein.

The deposits will be scraped off the surface during the harvesting, and collected for use as a crystal material. For a period beginning late this summer, through the fall of this year, Vulture will work daily to harvest salt from the site.

Because of the industrial pollution throughout the area, our relationship to it is contradictory. While the harvesting process will expose the salt, a necessary supplement, its purity will be called into question by the industrial surroundings. The presence of the material will foster the bodily recognition of the toxicity of the site as we contemplate the ramifications of its consumption and the irreparability of industrial pollution.

Resources

10,000 - Land
Land where the floating sculptures can be constructed, and that will provide access to the water.

$3,000 - Materials
Materials needed: drum barrels, leather, rubber, waterproof fabric, lumber, crystals.)

$2,000 - Art Handling and Storage
To store the sculptures in Brooklyn

$3,000 - Artist Time

$3,000 - Documentation

---------------------------------------------------

Value of total resources needed = $21,000

Timeline

August 2009
Building Salt Fields

September 2009
Performing salt harvesting

Winter 2009-10
Making sculptures

Spring 2010
Trust Art Auction

Locations

Bushwick Inlet

About the Artist

Dave Olsen graduated with a BA from Colby College in 2004 and a MFA from Mass Art in Boston in 2008.

Understanding life as a material cycle, with death as its stagnation, the human relationship to the natural world becomes clear to Dave. By rejecting his human identity and morphing into a vulture, he shields himself from the stagnant death of the man-made world in order to resurrect the life that once flowed. Conjoining both our knowledge and ignorance of the natural world, Dave explores the possibilities of life-renewal in the expanded field of materiality and the unknown. In his knowledge of the horrors of the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, the hopeful beauty of a salmon death-orgy, and the tragedy of impending mineral extraction, he renounces a life of death. Dave lives a life of hope and renewal, devoid of fear.

Artist's Past Work

Blood Transfusion, 2007
Dave drew blood from his body and injected into the carcass of a Beluga whale in an attempt to reactivate life in the whale. He used his alter-ego, Vulture to shield himself from the growing toxins in the dead animal.

Rain Barrow (life gift for the kid), 2007
Forged steel, wood, stoneware, waxed canvas 26’’ x 27’’ x 19’’.

Vulture Seeds life in Bio2007
Vulture generates a ferment of a dead rat and seeds the microbes of that ferment in the plaza at the entranceway to the Boston Convention and Exposition Center a few days before the beginning of the 2007 Biotech Convention. The participants in the summit gather the microbes as they cross the plaza, bringing the new beginning of life into the industry that generates death through its attempts to manipulate and control natural cycles.

Filter Vessel Placement, 2008
Vulture in action.

Vulture, installed with planter bags, 2007
Deactivated.

Public Wall

Wastelands - Left

Wasteland - Right1

Wasteland - Right2

Tuesday

May192009

Bushwhick Inlet

The Bushwick Inlet is the site that Dave has narrowed down to for his proposed installation in Greenpoint. You can find the location on the map here. We are in the process of getting the necessary permits from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation. Here's what the application is looking like:

Let us know if you have experience working with this agency, or would like to be involved in some way. Email theliason@trustart.org

Photo above by Ryan Muir

May 19, 2009 at 1:01 |

References (2)

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