Virtual Residency Day Nine, Mosses in Italy, Water in India
Barbara Melli in Pescia, Italy, who has been numbering the chestnut trees of the forest there with a slurry of buttermilk, ultramarine blue pigment and some local mosses has wanted to know how long it may take for the mosses to grow. Her "Paint by Numbers" task is the work I had suggested for the Verdearte event. As part of this virtual residency, Barbara was willing to mark each tree, individualizing them, in an outward spiraling series away from some point of local human significance.
I asked Dr. Xavier Penalosa, a botanist that question about how fast the mosses would take last night at a talk he gave here on the island. The occasion of his talk was preparatory to a walk he led this morning. The walk served to introduce a new acquisition by the Land Trust here, to protect a serenely beautiful area called Whitmore Pond.
Xavier said that as there are many kinds of mosses, it would depend upon what was in the slurry. The average was several weeks but some might take a year. As I recall, when my mother used buttermilk to grow mosses on rocks in her garden, she would periodically spray them lightly with water to encourage them. I have a sneaking suspicion that even the "quickly" generating mosses may not be apparent for some time.
The audience responsive part of me feels defensive about this delay. The artist in me is delighted by the idea of the invisible processes we will watch to become visible. I do hope for Barbara's sake and that of her audience, that the mosses are the "right" ones and do not keep anyone waiting.
In India, from New Delhi, Hemant has sent me an image of a water canister truck, which regularly delivers water to residents. I am fascinated by this idea of water on the road. I know that bottled water often travels in trucks to places all over the world, indeed, flies and crosses bodies of water. If water flies, it is also leaving a contrail. This seems like feeding wild fish to caged salmon for aquaculture: that is, creating a new environmental problem to solve a problem of ecological appetite. Except the appetite for water is basic to survival. So what to do about this modern dilemma: to effectively address problems, we create new problems?
In many places in the world, ground water is being dangerously depleted by human use. Indeed, one reason for the tragedy of Katrina in the United States was the effect of "subsidence", lowering the sea level of land by extracting oil, gas... and water to a level that left the city vulnerable to the storm surge.
How will we solve this problem of fresh water? By draining the oceans in de-salinization? If we do that, can the polar bears walk to the seals they must eat?
I asked Dr. Xavier Penalosa, a botanist that question about how fast the mosses would take last night at a talk he gave here on the island. The occasion of his talk was preparatory to a walk he led this morning. The walk served to introduce a new acquisition by the Land Trust here, to protect a serenely beautiful area called Whitmore Pond.
Xavier said that as there are many kinds of mosses, it would depend upon what was in the slurry. The average was several weeks but some might take a year. As I recall, when my mother used buttermilk to grow mosses on rocks in her garden, she would periodically spray them lightly with water to encourage them. I have a sneaking suspicion that even the "quickly" generating mosses may not be apparent for some time.
The audience responsive part of me feels defensive about this delay. The artist in me is delighted by the idea of the invisible processes we will watch to become visible. I do hope for Barbara's sake and that of her audience, that the mosses are the "right" ones and do not keep anyone waiting.
In India, from New Delhi, Hemant has sent me an image of a water canister truck, which regularly delivers water to residents. I am fascinated by this idea of water on the road. I know that bottled water often travels in trucks to places all over the world, indeed, flies and crosses bodies of water. If water flies, it is also leaving a contrail. This seems like feeding wild fish to caged salmon for aquaculture: that is, creating a new environmental problem to solve a problem of ecological appetite. Except the appetite for water is basic to survival. So what to do about this modern dilemma: to effectively address problems, we create new problems?
In many places in the world, ground water is being dangerously depleted by human use. Indeed, one reason for the tragedy of Katrina in the United States was the effect of "subsidence", lowering the sea level of land by extracting oil, gas... and water to a level that left the city vulnerable to the storm surge.
How will we solve this problem of fresh water? By draining the oceans in de-salinization? If we do that, can the polar bears walk to the seals they must eat?
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home