MICHAEL EDWARDS

Weeds Take On New Meaning In Art Installation

A weed—a wild plant growing where it is not wanted—is a nuisance to most gardeners, but for Bahamian artist Michael Edwards it is the centre of an art installation that explores the social and the scientific.

In his contribution to an exhibition of work by Bahamian artists that will be held in Germany next month, Edwards will establish and sustain a garden culture of invasive weed species and pick up the sounds of roots during growth in real time and amplify the signals. “There is a Nobel Prize biologist who is noted for saying something that I just love, which is ‘weeds are plants whose functions have not yet been defined.’ The term weed is multifaceted but in the broadest sense it is a plant growing where it is not wanted,” Edwards told Arts and Entertainment in an interview via email.

“Therefore weeds in a garden create disharmony or somewhat of a contradiction. Many garden/wilderness myths have established many of their strongest associations in a biblical sense. The ‘Garden’ is the kind of idealized nature where time stops and supposedly the wilderness beyond the garden was for the uncivilized, the savage, the other. “The English garden and its predecessor, French classicism (i.e. The Garden of Versailles) were exported ideologies. Of course even today, some 200-plus years later, all sorts of social parallels can be drawn.”

Edwards got the idea to take invasive weed species from The Bahamas to Sweden about a year ago. He wanted to grow the weeds from The Bahamas under similar conditions and finally plant thousands of them in the Swedish ecosystem, when the temperature allowed, to see if they would survive.

“This was one of the components for a kind of landscape transplant, as I termed it at the time,” says Edwards. Edwards says that he played with some other possibilities, like fusing his DNA with that of a weed and documenting the outcome. “I thought how conceptually compelling to be somewhat immortal and impose one’s self in landscape in different geographical locations. But I learnt of a similar collaborative experiment being done at another university lab.”

Edwards, who is pursuing a master’s of science in art and technology at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, is constructing a ‘Hydroponics’ system—instead of roots growing in soil, they grow directly in water and sprayed with a nutrient rich solution.

“I am constructing rectilinear transparent boxes to support plant species along with the support of an artificial light source, water pumps, timers, contact microphones, amplifiers and a computer,” Edwards explains.

“These components are used in such a way to establish an environment that is self-sustaining and conducive for the growth of weed species which is prevalent to the south of Sweden.”

Edwards has been working diligently with the help of the University of Gothenburg’s Botany Department and the Applied Acoustics Department at Chalmers University of Technology. Initial stop motion video experiments—Edwards would set up a video camera to take still pictures at even intervals, i.e. every two minutes for five days, resulting in thousands of images that are then converted to video—were conducted for different species, followed by sound capture and compression experiments, which Edwards admits were not always successful.

“Attempts to pick up low frequency signals from plant roots have been a constant frustration,” says Edwards. “Firstly, levels are far outside of the human audible range (20 hertz to 20k kilo hertz) so it's a matter of capturing some kind of signal which is severely impeded by background noise and adjusting it to be heard by the human ear. Secondly, signals acquired are often hidden in white noise—the raw static we get sometime on the radio or television—which requires a certain kind of analysis to extract these signals and then augmenting the amplitude or pitch.”

For the installation, the seeds will be transported to the gallery, and should germinate fast enough for the exhibition, says Edwards, who has taken part in similar collaborative projects in the past year, but not necessarily with plants.

Physically, the installation will consist of two transparent containers measuring approximately 50 x 30 x 24 inches. One will sit on a table with a light source and water vapor fogging machine, connected via PVC pipes to the second container beneath the table on the floor, which will be half-filled with water and a submerged pump. On an adjacent table will be a computer, amplifier and speakers.

Edwards says that he has been preoccupied for some time with landscape and inherent processes.

“I speak as much of cultural phenomena as I do of a visual/physical level,” he says. “The 18th and 19th centuries are such fascinating eras for both the arts and sciences. Here is the maturation of romanticism, exoticism and colonialism, which are loaded in and of themselves.”

Pointing to a “kind of curiosity and [classification] of nature that are reinforced and re-contextualised by myths and narratives,” Edwards asks the question, “who says that science can exist outside of culture?”

“I find this fascinating that the idea of nature, environment and landscape are very much cultural constructions. At the same time natural systems are latent with information that is multi-sensory,” says Edwards. “Within an art context much emphasis is paid to visual senses but much can be found within an audible space.”

While this installation is physically different from Edwards’ previous works, the conceptual underpinnings are still there, he says. “I just question them more now and have a better understanding of the work’s place or relevance within a cultural-social context.”

In terms of future projects, Edwards says there are some projects in the pipeline, and one in particular relating to the politics of Sweden and Norway. The installation that will be shown in Germany may also be included in an exhibition in Gothenburg at the end of May and possibly two others in Stockholm.

The exhibition, which opens in Frankfurt, Germany on March 18th and runs until April 30th, also includes the work of Bahamian artists John Beadle, Dionne Benjamin-Smith, Lillian Blades, John Cox, Blue Curry, Antonius Roberts, Heino Schmid and Clive Stuart.

Edwards sees the show as an important opportunity for Bahamian artists to share their work and ideas with the rest of the world.

“I’ve held the fervent view that work and ideas should be exported and the Bahamian practitioner must take part in regional and international dialogue,” says Edwards. “From the proposed works [by Bahamian artists participating in the show] I have been privy to thus far there is a kind of synergy or the parallel thought process that is rather comforting to witness.”

The show, he says, will also help breakdown some of the stereotypes that have long been associated with art coming out of the region, but emphasizes other facets have to come into play.

“Stereotypes are the result of long term mechanisms at work and will not be debunked so easily. Therefore, in addition to the visual/creative practitioner, other disciplines of creative thought must compliment it and by no means do I suggest that say, the literary should be subservient or an appendage,” says Edwards.

“Disciplines do affect one another. My point is that creativity is not a monopoly of the artist and the importance of critical/cultural theory emanating from the institution.”

Erica Wells, Journalist
February 2006.