Mary Mattingly
Building urban ecologies that address food, water, and shelter through sculpture and storytelling drives my artwork. I co-create sculptural ecosystems in public spaces, often with ecologists, engineers, students, stewards, and with input from neighbors. Public art can strengthen common spaces, working between policy, community groups, and the built environment through long-term engagement.
After analyzing my personal consumption and the material supply and waste chains of the tools I use, I began making interdependent ecosystems from material waste as a way to reimagine the public sphere. In 2016 I led a free, floating food forest on a barge in the public waters of New York in order to circumvent public land laws. In a food-insecure city, these laws have made it illegal to pick food in the 30,000 acres of public space. It is on its way to becoming a permanent public park in Brooklyn, and has spearheaded the “foodway” a 24-hour public greenway in Concrete Plant Park, the Bronx, where people can harvest edible plants for free.
Projects like this have grown and changed with inputs from neighbors, and that’s the most exciting part about building together: we all have diverse ideas to bring to the table. For guidance, I often look to a manifold group of activist-writers, with re-occurring voices who include Wendell Berry, Judith Butler, Dorothy Day, Amitav Ghosh, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Elinor Ostrom, Edward Said, and Vandana Shiva. I believe the process of co-creating ecosystems reimagines creative ways of being with the objects we use, as well as the land, plants, animals, and each other.
Ecotopian Library, 2019 and ongoing
Ecotopian Library, 2019 and ongoing
Ecotopian Library, 2019 and ongoing
Ecotopian Library, 2019 and ongoing
Ecotopian Library, 2019 and ongoing
Ecotopian Library, 2019 and ongoing
Ecotopian Library, 2019 and ongoing
Along the Lines of Displacement, 2018. Trees, soil; 33’ x 40’ x 42’ Three tropical fruit trees from agricultural zones 9 and 10 transplanted in agricultural zone 5 and 6 as a “living sculpture” and provocation: a proposal for a future that is predicted for the turn of the next century, when a 4-degree Celsius [7.2-degree Fahrenheit] temperature rise is the baseline for change with climate change.
Swale, 2016, and ongoing. A steel hopper barge, edible vegetation, soil, gravel, aluminum, wood, fabric, landfill liner; 130 x 40 x 22 New York City currently has 100 acres of community garden space, compared with 30,000 acres of public parkland. “Swale” is a public floating food forest in New York City, it utilizes common laws of the water in order to circumvent New York City’s public land laws. Growing or picking food on New York City’s public land has been off-limits for almost a century for fear that a glut of foragers may destroy an ecosystem. This way, Swale is able to dock adjacent to public land and allow people to freely forage edible and medicinal plants grown onboard.
"Last Library" was a project showcased at the University of Colorado's Art Museum where students and facilitators co-designed possibilities for an "Ecotopian Library" in Boulder, Colorado.
What Happens After? 2018, BRIC, a reconstructed military vehicle. What happens when an object that embodies both the systemic violence represented by war and and by climate change is manifested in a public space? The vehicle - used in the Gulf and Afghan wars and made in the U.S. by Oshkosh Defense - was collaboratively re-designed by nine artists, veterans, and activists into a platform for performance. Throughout the run of the exhibition, programming by these artists and across BRIC will be presented on the platform. The activation of an object with such a loaded history will further challenge our ability to collectively reenvision our environment in the present and future. When we're able to change the form and function of an object with a violent and complex history, it can be powerful. Can it become ritual? Can it be healing?