Gardens As Sculpture?

April 28, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY
 
Every year, Calvin art professor Adam Wolpa allows his sculpture class to
choose their final project, which they accomplish in teams.

This year, the class project is coined PLANT! and the effort expands the
concept of sculpture into the creation of community gardens.

As they fashion their neighborhood gardens, the students, Wolpa says, are also
exploring the concept of "place."

"We're kind of breaking out of the traditional definitions of sculpture and
art," Wolpa says of the garden-as-sculpture project, "but there are definitely
concerns involved that are similar to artistic concerns. You're talking about
color, texture, lines. And when you're landscaping, you're shaping the earth."

Wolpa's students are shaping the earth at six different garden sites in Grand
Rapids: in the Baxter, Eastown, East Hills, Fulton Heights, Alger Heights and
Heartside neighborhoods.

The student gardens are a study of how a specific city or region influences a
work of art and how that work of art in turn affects the place it was made.

"One of the requirements of the project is that you use materials from the
neighborhood, and so you're using appropriate technology," Wolpa says. "Another
requirement is that the students form relationships with the people in the
neighborhood."

Each team is documenting their gardening insights and experiences, including
the interactions they have with neighbors, on the PLANT! website at
www.plant.g-rad.org

PLANT! was inspired by another Calvin project, a study called "Strengthening
Liberal Arts Education by Embracing Place and Particularity," funded by
$100,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation.

Wolpa is one of several members of the Teagle study group, which examines how
a liberal arts college like Calvin and the community in which it is located
shape each other.

Contact Calvin's Adam Wolpa at 616-526-8640 or arw3@calvin.edu
For the full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/PLANT.htm

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Received on Fri Apr 28 09:36:33 2006