Early on in the Audit, Tony the Chief Preparator waved a survey under my nose. The survey was drafted by Stephen Mellor, from the Tate Gallery in London. Stephen, then in charge of the Tate’s installation team, had taken this initiative to try to get an idea of how art galleries and museums around the world were tackling the challenge to “go green”.

Tony discovered the survey too late – it was distributed in 2008, so the official period of research was already done and dusted. But he and I decided to go through it anyway, on the principle that asking ourselves the questions it posed might help to get a picture of what the MCA does (or doesn’t) do.

The questions relate to whether or not there is a green committee, how lighting is done, climate control, freight and so on: all the stuff that I nosed around trying to find out during this project. I believe that being forced to answer “no” to a lot of the questions (eg “do you currently have recycling schemes in public areas”) helped Tony get a sense of the MCA’s wonderful – how shall we say it? – opportunity for improvement…

With Stephen’s permission, I’ve posted the results of his survey online, with the hope that they might be useful to museum professionals everywhere. Feel free to download and distribute it.

Here’s the link: PDF, 260kb.

My friend George sent through a link to the Environmental Design Science Primer, which is a PDF available here.

It seems to be quite a practical guide to starting from here and now – where we are, with the knowledge we have, and skilling ourselves up… Here’s a quote from the introduction:

In order to have a significant effect on vital environmental and social issues, people need to acquire the skills that will allow them to act as planners and participants, rather than as spectators in the defining and solving of problems. If environmental education is to be relevant and effective, it needs to balance its approach between activities which alert people to the dangers of a reckless attitude towards the environment, and activities which that inform people how to design and implement positive alternative solutions.

It seems that too many environmental and social justice advocates think they should be exempt from reducing their aviation-related footprint because their work is important. The continue their airborne ways because they don’t see “realistic” alternatives, and, perhaps, more importantly, because they can.

It is not that the exercise of privilege can’t be put to good use, but such action always and inherently also brings about injury. So the question we have to grapple with individually and collectively is, does the resulting good compensate (at the very least) for the harm, while laying the groundwork for eliminating the system of privilege and disadvantage — what ultimately, from a social and environmental justice perspective, has to be the goal of progressively minded folks?

The above quote is from an article by Joseph Nevins entitled Flying Is One of the Worst Things You Can Do for the Environment — So Why Do So Many Well-Intentioned Folks Do It?

It goes to the core of the question that this Environmental Audit posed for itself right from the beginning: “If the museum puts on an exhibition about the environment, how much in the way of resources is consumed, how much carbon (etc) emitted in the process? In other words, was it worth it?”

Now, I can’t say that I have come anywhere near answering that question definitively. Actually, I’m not sure if it can be answered, except perhaps in small case studies where tangible social, political or environmental change has occurred as the result of a particular action. Too often, however, the outcomes of art projects (or of, as Nevins discusses in his article, “international meetings” enabled by air travel) are too hazy to properly measure.

Similarly, as one commenter states in response to Nevins, “I don’t see humans giving up air travel very soon [...] the benefits are immediate and gratifying, and the detriments are incremental and widely distributed — and human perception is too narrow to bridge the gaps.”

If our perception of the ill that is caused by air travel is too vague to be a disincentive, this means that in order to be motivated to change our behaviour we have to rely on longer term knowledge of cause and effect. In other words, we have to turn to the cumulative knowledge base of science, which transforms the aggregate of human minds into one immense, networked “mind” which is able to connect the dots over a much longer period of time.

For individuals who are not scientifically minded, or who don’t have the technical expertise to understand the nuances of climate science, this can pose something of a problem: to outsource our “knowing” to a wider community can be unsettling. To trust that the information we receive (eg, that air travel is one of the worst things you can do for the environment) is correct, without being able to see it with our own eyes, can cause great personal doubt – making it more difficult to change our behaviour.

This was one of the issues raised last night at the Tipping Point forum. It was put on the agenda by Jess, who wondered how she could act, as an artist. How could she usefully throw her weight behind the movement to slow climate change – when she only has a very feeble grasp of the science involved? How to jump on board without feeling like a phoney? And what kind of contribution can an ignorant artist make anyway, when all the knowledge seems to be “way up there”?

This is a pretty interesting problem, and I think in some way it heads towards the territory of belief. If we don’t “know” for ourselves (in the sense of knowing via personal experience) the ins-and-outs of climate change science, we do, to an extent, have to adopt a certain level of belief. An overarching belief in climate change, may, in fact, become a new world “faith”.

As I argued (with a rather half-baked metaphor) last night, in the small breakaway discussion group about this particular subject: just because I don’t fully understand the Torah, that does not make me any less Jewish. I accept the overarching belief system, and carry on with my daily life with this faith as a guiding force. On the other hand, the Torah is available so that I might deepen, or question, my understanding of my culture/faith if I so wish.

So too for the artist/scientist divide. Just because Jess doesn’t fully understand the science, does not mean that she should not act. Perhaps, working from the faith that scientific knowledge about climate change is “justified true belief”, she should carry on making art which she hopes can assist her fellow humans (and herself!) in dealing with this impending crisis.

Of course, this kind of talk wades into the thorny territory of epistemology, and it would take wiser heads than mine to untangle it all.

Stephen, one of the scientists present at the Tipping Point, objected to the idea that climate science might require some level of faith. For Stephen, science is a fact-based discipline, not subject to the same laws of relative interpretation as other human endeavours (like religion or propaganda).

I’m no scholar of the history of science, but it seems to me that science is a construct of post-enlightenment western civilization which follows particular ideological principals. This is not to argue that certain facts which underly climate physics are “relative”, in the sense that there is no inherent “truth” in them. It’s just to acknowledge that science is subject to the same social laws as any other aspect of culture: it has languages of communication, political forces which shape it, and standard methods of operation, which enable and constrain the kinds of “facts” it is able to discover.

And, as Stephen conceded, however “right” science may have proven itself to be (for instance, 98% of scientists now agree that human-induced climate change is a reality), it has failed to communicate that message powerfully enough to positively change the system that it measures.

Why? Perhaps because until very recently, the obsession of many good scientists with objective facticity has made them reluctant to weigh into political debates – as if such “motivated” communication would sully the disinterested correctness of the underlying science.

Could it be that science may now need to learn something from art*, in order to turn its objective facts into transformative social action?

*And when I say “art” I mean all sorts of art: hollywood movies, advertising, folk music, reality television, etc as well as the more museumified sorts…

Where’s the silver lining?
Can we re-imagine the nature of art and the culture of our relationships in the crisis of climate change?
 
And here’s what it’s all about:

Following short and sharp provocations and reflections on that topic and question ( 5-10 mins each) from scientist Anne Henderson-Sellers and artist Lucas Ihlein, Dick Robertson from TippingPoint will facilitate a different kind of extended conversation, ( from 6pm-10pm) using Open Space,  in which the audience decides what should be discussed.

What follows is a night of vibrant and creative conversation that leaves the participants engaged, connected and with an action plan.  Eating and drinking is encouraged through-out!

It should be an interesting event. I encourage folks to follow the link above to find out more about Anne Henderson-Sellers – her ideas on that site are compelling and intellectually challenging – particularly the concept of “environmental triage” – in which decisions will have to be made on which emergencies to act on as a priority, and which will have to be left until later (or never). Juicy stuff…

Media begets media. It’s the truth, sad as it may be. Given that my project’s “materials” include media such as blogging (amongst other things), the Environmental Audit blog gets requests from time to time from other media folks. In this case, it was the Radio National gang from the ABC, who asked if I’d like to do a segment called “The Vent”.

Actually, the story goes further back – there’s a thing coming up later this week called “Tipping Point“, focussing on the connections between art and climate change – and I’ve been invited to speak briefly at the launch. And it was because of THIS that the ABC got in touch.

The concept of The Vent segment is that one person speaks continuously for 5-10 minutes on a subject of his/her choice. Particularly something that gets their goat. In my case, it made sense to speak from the position of having been doing the audit for the last 4 months (it’s now coming to its end, folks!). To tell you the truth, I struggled a bit to come up with a rant – I’m actually feeling pretty positive right now… or at least I was a week ago when I recorded it!

Anyway, here it is, in all its nerdy splendour.

And, below the line here, you can read the transcript from my Vent…

- – -
THE VENT, by LUCAS IHLEIN, ABC RADIO NATIONAL ARTWORKS, 31 October 2010.

What’s an environmental audit?

Strictly speaking, it’s a way of adding up all the inputs and outputs for a given activity or object. Say I want to audit the lifecycle of my (supposedly eco-friendly) Toyota Prius. I’d consider the energy used to extract iron-ore to produce steel for body parts. I’d attempt to quantify the chemical manufacture of plastics to make the interior trim; not to mention the rubber in the tyres. I’d try to work out the volume of petrol consumed (and coal burned), plus all the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases the car farts out while driving around the city. If I were really conscientious, I’d follow the journey of my Prius right through to its grave — squashed to scrap metal and downcycled into something less useful, much of it tossed unceremoniously into landfill.

What is the basic function of a car? To conveniently shuttle humans and their goods and chattels across the surface of the planet. But what if I wanted to carry out an Environmental Audit of something less clearly defined? What about an environmental audit of Art? During the past four months, that’s what I’ve been doing at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

It hasn’t been easy. I’ve done my best to trace the materials and energy consumed in putting on the show. I’ve added up the power consumption of the lights, air-conditioning, crating and transportation to deduce the exhibition’s total emissions. But unlike my Toyota Prius, an art exhibition doesn’t have an easily defined function.
Is it to educate? To entertain? To give pleasure? To shock? To change society? To provide opportunities for rich folks to hobnob? A place for tourists to shelter from the rain? Or is it all of these functions and more? How many more?

Even if we could pin down the “core functions” of Art, how would we go about measuring its success? What are its Key Performance Indicators? How would we weigh these against the planet-bruising effects of putting it all together in the first place?

This is the sort of perilous terrain that I have been stumbling over since I began my audit at the MCA. I should note here that I am an artist — not a trained Environmental Auditor. So the project has been as much about my faltering process of learning to do an Environmental Audit, as it has been about any hard results. And yet, now that I’m approaching the end, with ever increasing frequency people inform me that they are looking forward to the time when I will reveal my ‘findings’.

My findings?

This question drives me crazy. As if this matrix of muddling could possibly deliver something as simple and satisfying as a bottom line, a green-star rating; a verdict damning or praising; a way of settling the score once and for all! I’m afraid, folks, I have no findings.

But what I do have is a blog full of ‘searchings’ — stories of individual situations and dilemmas which — perhaps — add up to a larger picture. From these searchings, I offer 3 short statements; observations gleaned from the auditing process and its effects.

Statement Number 1. TIME
Auditing implies an economy — and within the economy of production, Time is the ultimate resource. The industrial drive to produce more in less time, is, arguably, how we got ourselves into this absurd mess in the first place.

To free up time; to be able to stop for a minute, look around and consider whether what I’m doing is done in the most intelligent manner – this really is the rarest commodity I have. When I’m hurtling towards a deadline, the main thing on my mind is that ‘everything has to be perfect’ as the moment of the great unveiling arrives. Considered temporally, the launch-moment is of utmost importance. The lead-up period is simply the means to an end: disposable time.

I’ve seen it on dozens of occasions while setting up art exhibitions. We race around like chickens expending far more energy than necessary; we buy extra supplies from the hardware store, because we ‘don’t have time’ to go back to the shops if we’ve forgotten something; we leave a big trail of detritus behind us, to be cleaned up (or chucked out) later on; we beg favours from friends we hope to pay back some day.

In short, we borrow time from the future.

Statement Number 2. A SMALL DEVELOPMENT
The very act of staging ‘an exhibition about the environment’ has forced the MCA to consider its own ecological footprint. Perhaps it’s the fear of being accused of hypocrisy; maybe it’s the public exposure my audit has generated. It’s hard to measure cause and effect, but the museum has now formed an ‘environment committee’ to tackle questions that up to now have been intangible, unaccountable, uneconomical, un-askable.

Statement Number 3. AN OPPORTUNITY
To bring ecological cause-and-effect into the equation is not just a matter of popping a financial price on carbon emissions. It’s more than the use of surplus funds to ‘offset bad behaviour’ by purchasing virtue produced elsewhere; and it’s so much more than using recycled paper to print exhibition catalogues. The greening of art implies a more deeply integrated reworking of the very way we do things — a fresh consideration of each activity, keeping in mind the origins and the destinations of the materials which flow through our lives.

I want to be clear: this is not a slap on the wrist. Nobody will be forced to wear a hair shirt. This is not the dawn of a new age of austerity. Rather, what’s on offer is a mainstream opportunity to connect up our own activities with the complex chain of events they set in motion. It might seem like a strange thing to say, but the imminent collapse of our planet perhaps provides the best chance we’ve ever had to come into an intimate relationship with ourselves.

FRIDAY 29 OCTOBER, 12:30 – 1.30PM

What would you say if you stood to inherit royalties from a five billion dollar project?

Jeffrey Lee rejected this extremely lucrative offer. Join him in conversation to understand the reasons why, as he discusses his country and ongoing struggle to assert his traditional ownership over his land, despite pressure from industry to allow uranium mining.

Jeffrey Lee is the sole member of the Djork clan and senior custodian of the land encompassing the Koongarra Mining lease within Kakadu National Park. Lee has reputedly declined lucrative offers from a multinational corporation who were eager to extract 14,000 tonnes of uranium, worth over five billion dollars. Lee’s unwavering opposition successfully motivated the Federal Government to formally incorporate the area as part of heritage listed Kakadu National Park to ensure that his country remains unharmed for future generations.

In 2010 theweathergroup_U collaborated with Jeffrey Lee to produce a new video installation Koongarra, commissioned by the MCA for In the Balance: Art for a Changing World. The conversation will take place in the galleries, as part of the exhibition.

image above: theweathergroup_U Koongarra 2010 2-channel video installation, copyright the artists and Jeffrey Lee

Info from MCA website here.

Some fascinating issues continue to be raised by the Artist as Family.

The family, which made a Food Forest in the grounds of a church in Surry Hills, recently received a request for a photoshoot for an article in the Sydney Morning Herald with a local chef who was planning a “10 mile dinner”. The family declined permission, on the grounds that the food forest is a community resource, and not available to be transformed into a capitalised form of food production. The eventual news article, sans Artist as Family, is here.

I’ve responded in the comments to the Family blog, trying to tease out some of the things that arise from their refusal to participate in this monetised food economy.

So I thought it might be useful to cross-post from here, as others might like to weigh in to the discussion too.

I’ve had to humble myself with just doing as many as I can within the time available, given the energy I can generate in the course of any given day. I remind myself that since we’re thinking about “sustainability” here, my first responsibility is to my own sustainable working methods – to not burn out in the process…

With that in mind, in the next few blog entries, I’m going to try and reflect on some of the interactions I’ve had recently.

THE TAFE VISIT:

Here’s a photo of a group of TAFE students that came to visit me in the Audit room. One of the great things about having your artwork in the “resource room” is that there are plenty of chairs and a big table – it’s an ad-hoc classroom!

Elenore (the teacher – in the foreground looking towards the camera) had visited the MCA some weeks before. She and I had had a long and wide ranging chat about water tanks and paper recycling, amongst many other things.

(Elenore gave me some homework – to find out how many sheets of A4 photocopy paper make up “a tree”. Elenore, I’m afraid I haven’t found out yet, but when I do, I’ll let you know).

Anyway, after her first visit, Elenore got in touch and asked if she could bring her TAFE class in to see me. I said sure, and we made a date and time.

So on Tuesday morning, the students showed up, and I was surprised to learn that they weren’t art students, as I had assumed. Rather, they are studying “Certificate IV in Community Services” at Nirimba TAFE (near Mount Druitt, in Sydney’s western suburbs). All the students were women, and many of them were migrants from various parts of the world. Elenore said that, for the first time, all TAFE students are now required to do a common, grounding subject on “sustainability”, and this is expected to infuse all the areas of their study.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to try and ground myself in this rather unexpected situation. So I invited each of the students, in turn, to tell me about her own project, which she was undertaking as part of the course. Here’s a snapshot of the piece of paper I scribbled on while I listened to them take turns explaining themselves:

There were community garden projects, projects designed to tackle domestic violence, and others which attempted to engage residents of public housing in more community participation. A common theme throughout was “reducing social isolation”, caused by financial difficulties, cultural alienation, and geographical location.

I was really impressed with the scope of real world issues these women were facing, head-on, as part of their TAFE course. Many of these issues grew directly from communities that the students belonged to themselves. Equally impressive was the fact that all their projects were linked up with a “stakeholder” – a real-world organisation or entity which would benefit from the research they were doing. Their education programme was mutually productive.

As the students took turns around the table, one of their teachers, Kerryn, urged them to be as succinct and clear as possible in describing the projects they were engaged in. “Here’s an opportunity for you!” she said to them. “Lucas is here, he knows absolutely nothing about you, but he’s actually interested to hear what you have to say. I want you to practice your powers of description and get the message across”.

I found this really inspiring. These students had come to visit me – I thought they wanted to hear about my project. But instead I found myself being the listening ear while they practiced on me. In turn, I would interject, play back to each of them what I understood they had just said, ask questions and tease out the issues arising from their mini-presentations. In this process, my ignorance was something of an asset, as it was impossible for me to take for granted the inferred meanings of any half-baked descriptions.

One of the big difficulties many of the students are dealing with was “the need to get their message out” – whether to deliver public-education services, or to recruit volunteers, or to invite local residents to participate in social research. Many of their public-interface attempts are carried out in the streets, or at the local westfields mall. Most of them struggle, and a few succeed, in capturing some time from passers-by, by using various methods of aesthetic attention-seeking.

At the end of the round, I also took a turn, describing my own engagement with the MCA on this audit. Within the context of their own “community services” projects, my audit came across similarly – as a commission to engage with a particular problem within a community (in this case, the community of workers, artists and audience revolving around the museum, as the “stakeholder”). My project’s status as an “artwork”, while not swept under the table, was perhaps incidental to this discussion…

After the discussion, the students dispersed to have a look at the rest of the exhibition. Kerryn approached me and said she really appreciated the way that I had “held the space”. I asked her what she meant by this. “Holding the space”, she said, was a way of raising the issues and maintaining them in currency without closing them off; acknowledging the difficulties and ethical tangles of each of the projects without demanding that they be concluded or definitively solved; playing each ball into the air, then launching another one without needing them to all fall neatly into place. It requires a certain sort of patience, a certain ability to not be gripped by the need for instant decision-gratification.

I appreciated this feedback. In some ways, I feel like that’s exactly what this whole project has been evolving towards – acknowledging dilemmas, while resisting the demand for the gavel to fall, just for its own sake. Of course, I couldn’t have known this at the start. But by now, I’ve had enough experiences of the sort I had on Tuesday with the TAFE class to realise that what we do, when we talk this way, is to train ourselves in a sort of practical ethics. There’s no “right and wrong” when it comes to the real world. Or, even if there do exist clear “rights and wrongs” (and from the point of view of individuals they certainly do!), what are we to do with these, when they butt up against the practicality of actual living?

Yesterday I attended the first ever meeting of the MCA’s environment committee.

It felt historic, somehow. Tony suggested that this may have been what it was like, 25 years ago, when Occupational Health and Safety Committees were just starting out. By now, OH&S is ubiquitous, compulsory, legalised. But back then, it would have seemed like radical new territory. What sort of scope should such a committee have? What is its purpose? How should it all work?

Here’s my sketch of the attendees of the meeting. From memory, the table was square, rather than rectangular, but you get the idea.

Chris Arkins, from Steenson Varming had been invited along as an honorary attendee. He’s been consulting with the MCA about their “environmentally sustainable development” processes for the new building extension. (Chris was kind enough to speak to me at some length, very early in my audit project, and was very encouraging despite my ignorance.)

Who else was there? Tony, head of exhibition services, who runs the setting up and taking down of shows. Next to him sat Glenn the curator. Then came Paul, who is the building manager, then Euan, the chief operating officer, followed by Flora, me, and Amy (Flora and Amy are the business admin trainees who did the amazing MCA photocopy audit). Finally you had Alana, the very enthusiastic visitor services officer who’s been chiming in here a fair bit, Dee, who runs Human Resources at the museum, and Helen who works with the education department.

The meeting began with Euan calling for ideas for defining what the purpose of the committee should be. Helen jumped in first, saying that she thought it was great timing, with a new building in the works, to come up with some firm ideas for “best practice”. Somebody else chimed in that it would be great to set an example to other institutions. Ideas buzzed around the room, sometimes staying on topic, sometimes veering off into minutiae or very particular sub-projects. It was clear that this was a long-overdue meeting, and it might take a little while to tease out all the things that the committee can and can’t tackle.

Still, it all crackled along. Big things and small, big things and small.

Euan, with the help of Chris Arkins, painted a broad picture of the new extension building development and what it would entail. Many of the big interventions – the new seawater heat exchange system, and intelligent lighting, will roll out with the new extension, and will have a domino effect in improving the old building. However, many of the old-fashioned, power hungry systems currently in place won’t be upgraded until the new building is finished – sometime next year.

Tony (with some perverse glee, perhaps) shared with us all the massive problem he’s facing right now. In 2011, the MCA will shut down for a while, and everything will have to be cleared out of the old building. Behind the walls, inside the cavities in the galleries, is 19 years’ worth of junk: obselete electrical and lighting fittings, building materials, rubber matting, crates, crates, so many crates. What is to be done with all this stuff? Time is of the essence, and if a solution is not found, they’ll have to be thrown away.

This problem was seized upon, ideas flowed: what about a big garage sale on the front lawn? What about selling it all on Ebay? What about freecycle? (The issue of “finding a good home” for potentially useful stuff, which has accumulated like barnacles on the bottom of a ship, reminded me of the fact that there’s still no solution for what will happen to the Future Farmer’s work, in 10 days time when the exhibition is pulled down…)

The other issue which Tony raised was about the building of walls. This is something that he’s been thinking deeply about ever since we tackled it here in the blog. Tony suggested that in the future, we could have a whole new paradigm, in which the methods and materials used for displaying artists’ work was no longer so wasteful. There was some debate amongst the group about whether constraining artists in this way was a good idea or not. I think it’s a fascinating opportunity for the MCA to lead the way in coming up with a solution to art display which is both materially responsible and aesthetically satisfying: abundant and joyfilled, not just austere and lean-and-mean. How could this be achieved?

But as far as the committee is concerned, Euan kept trying to pull the focus back from these pressing specific issues, to the wider scope of the policy. If we had a policy, it could become a guideline which could help shape an approach to solving these specific problems. No policy can ever anticipate every issue which might arise, but it might perhaps evolve into an ethos which could help shape any situation.

And perhaps it should come as no surprise that Flora and Amy have already begun gathering material for an MCA Environment Policy. Very quickly, roles settled in: Dee would be the “policy champion”, Flora and Amy would send their findings and recommendations to her; and Tony (technical) and Glenn (curatorial) would send any relevant material to Flora and Amy, which they would sift through and boil down into simpler, policy-like terms.

It was felt that the presence of a representative from the Marketing department was desirable – not only because Marketing is responsible for large quantities of printed matter, but also because Marketing has the potential to communicate “good news” about the museum’s progress to the outside world. As Chris Arkins wrote in his recommendations to the MCA a few years ago:

The potential for kudos from taking a leadership role is as great as the potential political fallout if the targets and commitment are seen as insufficient.

Chris suggested that the organisation’s new environment policy could be launched to coincide with the launch of the new building. He also urged the committee to make sure we obtain “buy-in” from all the staff – everyone needs to be engaged and consulted, so that changes don’t come as surprises which rain down from above.

To this end, there was talk about using the MCA’s new internal communication website to publish the minutes of the meeting, and to call for contributions, especially from the vast numbers of casual workers who keep the place running every day.

Chris also recommended that we thoroughly document the current consumption of resources, and production of waste. This is like taking a “before” shot as one embarks on a weight loss programme – a way of tracking progress. Essentially, this means quantifying some things, like power usage, water usage etc. I’ve begun some of that process here in the Environmental Audit, but probably a much drier, more targeted, technical, whole-building analysis is called for at this point. He mentioned that the Sydney Opera House has its own Sustainability Officer, Naomi, and that we might be able to pick her brains about a plan of attack.

This made me stop and think… The Opera House has one; Sydney Theatre Company has one; the City of Sydney has a whole department of them: paid positions for an “environment officer”. It does seem to me that the creation of such a position within the MCA would achieve two things. First, it would make 38 hours a week of time available to tackle all these things which the current members of the environment committee are going to have to squeeze into the corners of their day. And second, it “sends a message” that the organisation takes this stuff seriously enough to give it a person. An officer could organise workshops, pass around information, run surveys, meet with external consultants, and so on.

It’s just an idea. It could be that in fact, it’s better for folks within the MCA to integrate these issues into their daily working processes. Perhaps that would be more satisfying? Or maybe it’s not an either-or situation?

Finally, I just want to share two snippets from a document which Euan passed around. The first is a draft of “Visions and Goals” for the MCA. These may be refined or redefined as the committee carries on its work:

…and the second is a list of the museum’s “achievements” (or pending achievements) in environmental stuff:

The following is a guest contribution, from Lucy, who works as a Visitor Services Officer (VSO) at the MCA. VSOs work from 10am to 5pm each day, and rotate throughout the museum every half hour. I think they represent a massive untapped resource of information about the way that artworks operate. Artists make the work; curators choose it, place it, write about it; gallery-goers experience it briefly when they visit. But nobody spends as much time with the work as the VSOs.

The MCA tends to employ artists, and sometimes art students, as VSOs. Thus, these gallery invigilators are far from “public servants” who perform a mechanical function of surveillance. Rather, the VSOs, while they are watching to make sure nothing goes awry, and writing reports on mishaps, are also thinking deeply about what is the role of art, and how particular artworks function in practice (rather than in the ideal space of the artist’s studio, or the utopian zone of the exhibition catalogue).

And so it is with Lucy, who has penned this thoughtful response to three artworks which are part of the In the Balance exhibition, each of which use plants in a different way.

Here is her guest blog:

Plants in the balance: a contribution by Lucy Ainsworth.

In the Balance is an exhibition about environmental concerns, so it seems relevant to include artworks containing living plants. Some of the artists using plants in this exhibition are Lauren Berkowitz, Diego Bonetto and Artist As Family.

Being a VSO at the MCA means that I spend copious amounts of hours with the artworks and get to know them from a unique perspective. Over the past weeks I’ve been watching the plant works growing and changing and it got me thinking about them in relation to the Environmental Audit. We all know that plants are good for the environment, but are these particular plant artworks environmentally friendly and sustainable or are they purely conceptual and aesthetic? (Perhaps they offload some of the carbon emissions generated by the other artworks!)

These are some questions/issues I thought were important to think about:

What is the place, purpose and point of having these plant works in the exhibition? How can you have an exhibition about the environment without having plants? Or perhaps how can you have an exhibition about the environment with plants? What additional resources are used/required to display the plant-works? And what happens to the plants after the exhibition finishes?

One of the key factors in terms of how this relates to the Environmental Audit is this: unlike other works, which need minimal attention after they’re installed (this is a generalisation), the plants need regular watering, sunlight, insect inspections and general upkeep. Basically, having a living artwork requires extra resources to look after and maintain it.

Lauren Berkowitz, Sustenance, installation at the MCA, 2010.

At the beginning of the exhibition I was interested in Lauren Berkowitz’s Sustenance and have been watching it closely over the weeks. I began to notice a rapid change in the condition of the plants, with some starting to look a little ‘sad’ after a week or so. When a visitor approached me very concerned about the state of the plants, she offered to come into the MCA and take care of them free of charge. It got me thinking about the issues of housing plants in a museum that is climate controlled to suit more conventional artworks and not living plants. Although the plants are watered and rotated (with the plants outside on the balcony) regularly, some are still looking in need of a little love. Many of the plants have since died indicating that housing plants in a museum like this is not very sustainable.

Lauren Berkowitz’s plants on the MCA balcony.

Also, from an “auditing” perspective all the plants are edible and medicinal so serve a practical purpose, which is to be harvested and eaten. However, these plants function as specimens of edible and medicinal plants and have a more conceptual purpose. This raises the question, that because this is an exhibition about the environment should the plant works be functional and practical or is it ok for them to be purely aesthetic and conceptual, hence unsustainable?

Diego Bonetto, weed-terrarium installed at the MCA, 2010.

Another work that captured my curiosity was Diego Bonetto’s 5 terrariums, 5 tours and a world of Facebook friends, which are located in corners and windows throughout the exhibition. These works are certainly “sustainable”; they practically take care of themselves. The terrariums provide a controlled environment supplying the energy, water, humidity etc the weeds need to grow and be completely self-sufficient. The initial soil sample is placed into the terrarium, the weeds grow, using all the nutrients in the soil, die, fertilising the soil and grow again. Terrariums are what natural museums use to display living plants, so it’s a logical choice.

Diego Bonetto, detail of terrarium showing weeds which have emerged from soil sourced from The Domain, Sydney.

In contrast to Lauren Berkowitz’s Sustenance, Bonetto’s work requires minimum maintenance so is quite sustainable. It is no surprise that weeds are more sustainable and easier to maintain, isn’t that why they are weeds! Perhaps Diego’s work will encourage people to forage and eat edible weeds. This has to be good for the environment!

The Artist as Family, Food Forest, Plan Drawing, 2010

Food Forest, by the Artist as Family, is a site-specific community garden in Surry Hills. It operates outside of the museum context, and therefore avoids some of the problems the in-house plant works have. Food Forest is easily compared to Lauren’s Sustenance as it also uses edible plants. Although, instead it has a functionality and environmental purpose, to provide an ongoing food supply to the church’s soup kitchen and encourage participation from the local community.

The Artist as Family, Food Forest, mid-2010, Surry Hills, Sydney.

This work requires constant maintenance to ensure the plants are healthy, with regular water and fertiliser and harvesting when ready and needed. Although the project requires extra resources, in terms of the Environmental Audit it is more sustainable long term. For argument’s sake, just like Lauren Berkowitz’s Sustenance, you could analyse the aesthetic/conceptual vs. the practical/functional aspects of the work. Perhaps Food Forest is more practical and functional?

Overview – All three works have varying levels of required care, maintenance and end results. Sustenance requires constant watering, moving (so they have some time in the sunlight and fresh air), and insect spray to stop the aphids eating them but the plants won’t be harvested. After the initial install, 5 terrariums, 5 tours and a world of Facebook friends requires low maintenance; terrariums are built to be self-sufficient and don’t need to be watered or moved often, but the weeds won’t be harvested. Food Forest requires watering (but it is located outside so will have rain) and fertiliser, and can be harvested for eating.

So is all the care and maintenance for these plants worth-while for the exhibition?

Here’s a diagram:

Finally, Lucas raised this question about the Future Farmers Sunshine Still and Sun Runner – what will happen to the works after the exhibition closes?

Food Forest will remain an ongoing project but what will happen to Lauren’s plants and Diego’s weeds? Maybe we can have an MCA picnic or they can be composted or consumed by a worm farm?