The Biomimicry Project

7 - 28 August 2010

The Biomimicry Project asks its participants to think of their product as a process. Through the process of design, production, consumption and disposal, Biomimicry Project producers work to BIOMIMIC – to integrate, to honor, to open a dialogue with, to give visibility to, and to be inspired by – the natural processes which run parallel and play an integral part in their production. “We are a part of the natural world, not separate from it, and have a shared path with reciprocal actions: while we impact hard on nature, nature also influences us. Giving form to this connectedness and reciprocity is a key part of sustainability” (Sustainable Textiles). The Biomimicry Project utilizes nature’s solutions to illuminate the relationship between human and natural systems.

 

  • Adriane Colburn
  • Zoe Alexander Fisher
  • Futurefarmers:  Amy Franceschini + Michael Swaine
  • Phil McGaughy
  • Audrey Snyder

 

And POP-UP-SHOP Featuring The General Store + The Botany Factory

 

Adriane Colburn has contributed her Episodes project, which were produced as an edition of ten hand-cut Digital prints with ink, published by Gallery 16, San Francisco.

 

Zoe Alexander Fisher curated the Biomimicry Project and created The Biomimicry Project coat. This couture coat is a product and a process; Hand felted with 100% organic undyed wool (which is an excellent nitrogen fertilizer for soil) and inlayed with vegetable garden seeds, this coat is meant to be worn during the winter season and then planted in the earth during the spring to create a food producing organic garden in the summer. The coat can be ordered in custom sizes and will be made to order.

 

 

Futurefarmers:  Amy Franceschini + Michael Swaine

Erratum: Attempts to Reverse the Waste Stream


Erratum: Attempts to Reverse the Waste Stream is a new work by Futurefarmers’ Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine.Erratum, expresses concern and critique of the logic of capital and its effects upon the people and things in our everyday lives through the medium of performance, sculpture and the printed word. In a short video the two artists transform a porcelain toilet into bricks in four movements. In quite brutal actions, they use sledgehammers to smash the toilet into small shards that are then reshaped to form a stack of bricks.  This action builds upon their earlier work whereby they deconstruct food policies, public transportation and educational systems in order to create tools to understand and transform their intrinsic logics. Often through their disassembly they find new narratives and potential reconfigurations that propose alternatives to the principles that once dominated these systems.  On display will be 4 stills from the video.

 

Phil McGaughy has a created an eight foot sculpture made from redwood and construction paper, acrylic paint which will be displayed in the center of the gallery. His use of organic wood combined with hobby shop wood construction is intended to call attention to two seemingly opposed forces – human nature, and natures limitations. The abstract milled wood exoskeletons should be considered as both viral predators consuming, and prosthetic appendages reinventing, the found organic forms. His intent is to have the two forms tangoing around each other in a kind of symbiotic tension.

 

Audrey Snyder included an artwork made of sugar that will melt and dissolve throughout the course of the exhibit. Audrey Snyder is an interdisciplinary thinker and builder from from San Francisco. She is currently pursuing a BFA from The Cooper Union in Manhattan, while trying to integrate her interests in food and agriculture with cities and traditional art processes.

 

And POP-UP-SHOP Featuring The General Store + The Botany Factory