I am so sorry. Goodbye

© Heather & Ivan Morison

I am so sorry. Goodbye by Heather and Ivan Morison has been transported in the middle of the Barbican estate for Radical Nature, Art and Architecture in a changing planet.
Made of wood harvested from fallen trees and assembled piece by piece, it forms a pentagonal structure reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller's survival constructions.
The shelter confronts our future as it is a spaceship to board in case of a disaster. Its title refers to mis-communication between locals and visitors of foreign countries, the work opening here onto a prophetic ecological failure.







Journee des Barricades 2008 © Heather and Ivan Morison

Journee des Barricades, another Morison's project, borrows from activist practices to mention the ecological failure making the citizens of Wellington spectators of a fantastic tsunami of rubbish.
Collecting garbage from derelict areas of the city and involving viewers in its re-appropriation would reflect on possible alternatives but 'borrowing' garbage from recycling areas - meaning complex logistics and environmental non-friendly processes to move tones of garbage - and back again, requiring more negotiations with the authorities than "disruption from the city traffic"* can be seen as symptomatic of the failure.























© Heather & Ivan Morison

Land of Cockaigne, another project, shows kilos of flowers being given away as graceful, hedonist gesture : with its observational platform, the work seems to denounce the flower industry - flowers grown in third world countries by western industries that overuse local land and local food potential. 
As its viewers are eager to grab as much as they can, it swaps the laws of luxury for complacent generosity, turning Land of Cockaigne into a performance more concerned with human failure than activism.


















* Dorita Hannah, Ivan and Heather Morison, Journee des Barricades - a critical response, Massey university, Litmus research initiative, 2009.