Site-Specific, Performance-Art Installations

Have Lawn, Will Travel. Summer, 1996

Multiple Realities & On the Road Again. Winter, 1998

Statement

As we begin the twenty-first century, our notions of personal success and economic security are undergoing radical revision. In North America, the age of mechanization and industrialization has given way to automation, computerization and globalization. Where once there stood the factory of a local manufacturer, now there stands the regional office of a trans-national corporation. Many people call this progress and deem it a necessary step in our relentless march toward "the good life". These same voices urge us onward, declaring that, "as our technology changes, so too must the individual." But, to what end?

As our economic base becomes less dependent on manufacturing and more dependent on highly specialized services (such as computer programming), the need for a smaller and more specialized work force is growing. This shift to a high-tech economy, added to the need to stay competitive within a new, global marketplace and the almost manic desire some companies have to satisfy stock-holders at any cost, has led to calamity (ENRON, WorldCom). Corporate America's unceasing drive to down-size, right-size and "trim the fat" is now exacting a heavy toll on those who cannot adapt to the sophisticated technologies of our "brave new world". As a result, a growing segment of society is feeling disenfranchised, left behind, forgotten...

Many of the securities - a job for life, an old-age pension, a comfortable retirement - that our parents took for granted in the fifties, sixties and seventies are becoming unrealistic expectations for more and more people. For the generation that is now coming to age (Generation X and the Millennials), the security of owning ones own home is quickly becoming an unattainable luxury. I'm one of those who will never own my own home and who's accustomed to moving regularly to find employment and affordable places to live. Being marginally-employed and lacking equity of any kind are insecurities that I know well, despite working two jobs (three jobs if you also include my work as an artist). My performance art addressed some of these issues.

Process

This project started one sunny afternoon in May of 1995, when I happened across two rolls of fresh sod that had recently fallen off of the back of a truck. I took one roll to my studio and planted the other in a barren field in SW Calgary (see the very first image on this page). That summer was unusually warm and so I returned daily to water my small patch of lawn. I never had to cut it though, because wild rabbits visited the site regularly, keeping the grass nicely trimmed.

Some afternoons, I would sit on the lawn and stare off across the field to a CIBC bank building and think about things. Behind me (pointing in the other direction) were expensive homes, which can be seen in my 1996 performance titled, Great Expectations. It was while I was sitting there (getting dirty looks from the rabbits) that I began thinking of a lush, green lawn as a powerful icon that embodies many of the values that we associate with the "North American way of life". To me, this seemed like a good idea for an art project, although I wasn't exactly sure what form it would take.

The following year, with help from the Canada Council, I made Have Lawn, Will Travel: a series of 14 site-specific performance-installations that took place from May to September of 1996. The main component of this project was a mobile lawn with dimensions that I could adjust from 5 feet wide x 8 feet long to 10 feet wide x 12 feet long (to accommodate the size of the performance space).

My thinking went something like this: As one of the perks that accompanies home ownership and regular employment, a well-kept lawn signifies economic privilege and a considerable measure of psychological security. From this perspective, a lawn seems an appropriate vehicle through which one might explore some of the issues that arise when traditional values and expectations clash with the reality of our fast-changing world. Moreover, a lawn that's mobile seems well-suited to the nomadic condition of today's worker who must always be ready to relocate her home and family at the whim of a merciless labour market.

In retrospect, I may have been overly ambitious (it was SO MUCH WORK; I can't even begin to tell you how much work it was!). I chose 14 sites throughout Calgary on which to install my lawn and then enlisted friends and used props to create scenarios that are typically associated with the privilege of owning a lawn. Over the summer of 1996, I moved my lawn from one urban setting to another, finding metaphorical relationships between these spaces and the experiences that are shared by many in our society.

An example of one these performances is titled, Parking It. For this particular work, I placed my lawn in a parking lot and then spent the afternoon at my umbrella table, leisurely perusing the Renter's Guide and plugging coins into the parking meter. The image of an apartment hunter sitting on a mobile lawn parked in a metered area provoked thought among many of the passers-by about the precarious sense of security and transient privileges that accompany the act of renting a home. I had some wonderful conversations with many individuals and nearly got beat up by an enraged meter-attendant, whose boss should have mentioned (but didn't) that my lawn would be parked on "her turf" (it's one of the dangers of performance art).

Venues

As an integral part of this body of artworks, I used large-format equipment to photograph each performance so that at the end of the project I could present large, high quality prints within a gallery. From January to February, 1998 these images were shown at The Muttart Public Art Gallery (renamed, Art Gallery of Calgary) in an exhibition titled, Multiple Realities. Later, in 2006, several of these images were shown in Athens, Ohio at the Ohio University School of Art Gallery in an exhibition titled, Smoke and Mirrors: Photography and Performance.

For the Muttart exhibit, I installed (in addition to the prints) the original platform with a freshly-grown lawn, which I had to sprout from seed with ballast-operated, retractable grow-lights that I set up in the basement of my apartment during the coldest month of the winter. I also installed many of the accessories that I collected over the course of the project, including a new patio and a flower garden (my home improvement projects).

Concurrent with the Muttart exhibit, I created a site-specific installation titled, On the Road Again at Arts Commons in downtown Calgary. The found objects within this work - a road map, the employment section of the newspaper with jobs circled in red marker, toiletries, burgers on a portable grill - told the story of a fictional individual who had set out on a job-search with his lawn in tow, perhaps to find work as a delivery person so he could always have his lawn nearby. I also included several good paperback novels (with the titles On The Road, The Dispossessed, Care of the Soul, and The Question of Reality) as well as lucky dice and a vanity plate (which read, "My Other Lawn is an Acreage", lol). All of these items hint at the tenacious and resourceful character of my fictitious job hunter. The work spanned January and February and so I added snow by sprinkling laundry detergent everywhere (see the images above).

Conclusion

In the economically vibrant city of Calgary, Have Lawn, Will Travel and On the Road Again gave a voice to members of the community who do not have access to the resources that others take for granted.

In a light-hearted way, these site-specific performance installations provided the means to examine some of the paradoxes, absurdities, and problems of hanging on to unrealistic expectations while trying to adapt to a Darwinian existence.

Click here for the names of those who made this performance-art project possible.