Supported by the City of Melbourne through the Arts Grants Program
Expanding Dimension, rotating air garden installed March 30 2012, Airborne project - second installation of rotating air gardens at Les Erdi Plaza, Northbank, Melbourne
Expanding Dimension, rotating air garden installed March 30 2012, Airborne project - second installation of rotating air gardens at Les Erdi Plaza, Northbank, Melbourne
7. 18 am Saturday 27 July - this is the scene that greeted Grant Harris and I when we arrived for the final install of 4 new air gardens at Les Erdi Plaza, Northbank, Melbourne.
Airborne project - second installation of rotating air garden, at the Baldessin Press, before the installation
My thanks to Grant Harris, Stu Jones, Dave Stewart, Matt Blackwood, Megan.Simondson, Mariano Imbrioscia
Air garden one installed Feb 2013 - Queensbridge Pedestrian precinct, Northbank ,of the Yarra River, Melbourne. The work is located on the fenced boundary between the public concourse and Platform 10 at Swanson St Station - intentionally the site is a difficult location to install living plants. The series of rotating air gardens extend between 8 existing lighting columns from SIGNAL towards Swanson St.
As an urban concourse with high daily foot traffic, this is an area of significance to the inner city environment.
Media Release April 2013
AIRBORNE GROWS!
As part of the Melbourne City Council 2013 Arts Grants, Lloyd Godman has just installed the next two air gardens for the growing Airborne work. Airborne is a unique series of super-sustainable rotating air gardens suspended high in the sky between existing poles at the Les Erdi Plaza, Northbank: these exist nowhere else in the world! The first two gardens were installed 9 Feb 2013 and have endured this Melbourne summer's demanding hot dry conditions without any auxiliary water system and no soil medium. Since the early 1980s, Godman has witnessed growing numbers of environmentally concerned artists commenting about the environment in highly creative ways. But most often the work is just that, a comment, or representation of nature. Sometimes an artist maybe inspired by nature but then utilizes highly toxic materials to achieve and end. With the living air gardens, there is a deliberate intention to step beyond comment, and like Joseph Buyes 7,000 oaks project to not only comment but to contribute, to fuse the nature culture divide, to make works that are simultaneously culture and nature, that are fully sustainable and grow to create a new resource to create further works from.
Few if any art mediums can achieve this. With the suspended air plant work Godman is interested in exploring how plants can be adapted to occupy space but not occupy surface. Suspension on wires extends the potential habitat of plants into what he terms Alpha space. While vertical and roof top gardens have become popular in major cities worldwide, they rely on surface, where as these intriguing ground breaking air gardens step beyond earthly confines to suspended in Alpha space. Unlike typical vertical gardens, there is no maintenance other than to harvest the plants biannually to retain the desired form which offers a resource to create further living works. Weighing very little, with multiple elements rotating independently on the slightest breeze, the air gardens throw intricate animated shadows on the ground or adjacent walls - these alter with the traverse of the sun and with the seasons. The concept behind the work is to create super - sustainable living art works within the built environment. Two further gardens have just been installed in April and further air gardens will be progressively installed until the full complement of 8 air gardens adorn the sky of the space, where they will remain till the end of 2013.
Dates: Commencing 9 February until the end of 2013 Location: Les Erdi Plaza, Queensbridge Pedestrian Precinct Northbank (near Signal & Sandridge Bridge)
FURTHER INFORMATION Check the latest air garden plant works
Youtube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCTdsSUauuQ
E lloydgodman@gmail.com W lloydgodman.net - Twitter - @atmomachine
“Not only do these artworks convey powerful messages and philosophies of sustainable and ethical physical interaction, but they also reach out beyond ideas to become part of the actual structure – as physical objects, Godman’s artworks are purifiers of the air as well as the soul, suppliers of colour as well as calmness, and filters of water as well as the human spirit”. - John Power October 2011
Supported by the City of Melbourne through the Arts Grants Program
proposal - photo mock up of Airborne, a series of rotating gardens for Melbourne City Council, the proposal has been accepted and will be installed 2013
