Leaky AC Pipe Over Moss Mound

2019
LED grow light, timer, tubing, plumbing, water, oak board, live moss
Oak board 8 x 12 x 1.5 in, set up dimensions variable

Abstract:

What is the recipe for life? You need minerals, perfect conditions and water. Water is the key ingredient, and the only way that life persists on this planet. In the wild, water can come from many sources: rain, streams, dew, or a leaky AC pipe.

This sculpture elaborates on this recipe, and applies it to a specific microclimate that I chanced upon, while walking to my car on a hot summer day. This microclimate (see photos) exists at the base of a drainage pipe of an AC unit. The water that drips from this pipe, is on the northern side an older TCU administrative homes. The function of this building is of no significance to the squirrels and birds that rely upon this dripping water during the drought stricken summer months. This pipe and the moss that grow around it, are an oasis for life in the otherwise sterile desert of domesticated sprawl.

By bringing life into the gallery space, I have become aware of how lifeless we prefer to keep our curated spaces. There are very practical reasons to keep the wildness of nature outside of our civilized bubbles, but step back and watch how other people interact with this sculpture. Does our desire to maintain control of our spaces, separate us from our innate nature and our need to experience more green spaces? Can green spaces ever be living sculptures and what would happen if forests became sculptures?

This work was show with, In Good Taste