This was a complex installation that I conceived of in collaboration with Janis Bowley. It was shown at Toronto's Mercer Union Gallery in the summer of 1988 as an attempt to address some of the complex issues faced by the forest ecosystems surrounding the Great Lakes, such as acid rain, the loss of biodiversity and water pollution. The overall effect was that of a kind of science museum, where Janis and I modeled natural systems, using the media in which we each liked to work. Janis did this primarily through painting and drawing while I built little ecosystems whose nutrient flows and microclimates where electromechanically regulated. We collaborated on a series of 'exquisite corpse' type drawings where we each added a 'body' part depicting some aspect of the forest ecosystem, to what the other had already drawn.
Click here for a gallery of images from the installation.
In this piece, rainwater dribbled from a Pepsi bottle onto some sugar maple (Acer saccharinum) seedlings. The drops passed by a sensor, causing the clapper of a fire alarm to strike its bell. The backdrop of a Great Lakes/St. Lawrence mixed forest scene was done by my then collaborator, Janis Bowley.
