Edward Hines National Forest
@ Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell Avenue
Opening Sunday, November 12th, from 9am - 8PM
On view through Saturday, February 11th
Chicago-based artist Sara Black and Aotearoa, New Zealand artist Raewyn Martyn will transform Hyde Park Art Center’s Gallery 1 from November 12, 2017 until February 11, 2018 into an immersive built landscape constructed in response to the far-reaching timber industry that grew out of the south branch of the Chicago River. The exhibition, “Edward Hines National Forest,” introduces a site-specific installation that traces the material processing of trees, from plant to lumber and cellulose, to produce hybrid forms that expose the complex relationship between people, human-made objects and the natural ecosystem. A public reception for the exhibition will be held on Sunday, November 12 from 3-5 pm.
“Edward Hines National Forest” will create a temporary extension of the existing catwalk above the gallery space, enabling visitors to walk on and through the sculpture and painting. The lumber used to build the structure, as well as the cellulose extracted to create the biopolymer paint, are both derived from red pine trees exposed to the fungus Diplodia pinea. These trees from Hayward, Wisconsin are genetic descendants of the old-growth Northwoods, now fully deforested by the Edward Hines Lumber Company during the late 19th and early 20th Century, headquartered in Chicago. The disease is an artifact of such extractionist practices and the global trade of Diplodia-exposed nursery plants.
Adapting the values and functions of a National Forest System, “Edward Hines National Forest” recognizes ongoing land use by humans as connected to past, present and future anthropogenic alteration of our ecological and climate systems. As intensive land use continues and government environmental protections are diminished, the staff of the USDA and Forest Service are censored from using the phrase ‘climate change’. In this exhibition, and the accompanying Use Book, the artists and contributors raise questions about ecological support structures, systems, and even the architecture of democracy itself.
Official Website
More events on this date
Tags: Chicago, Edward Hines National Forest, Hyde Park, Hyde Park Art Center, Raewyn Martyn, Sara Black
« previous event
next event »