East Haddam, Connecticut
I-Park’s fifth Environmental Art Biennale, “Ephemeral Art in the Landscape,” featured site-specific, outdoor installations by 12 artists-in-residence from the U.S. and Europe, who presented their works in a culminating, one-day happening. Guided walking tours allowed the public to experience the projects amid the park’s immersive natural setting. Unique in New England, I-Park functions as a conceptual drawing board where artists can experiment without a specific result in mind, and public access is limited to protect the artists’ privacy as they work. The one-day exhibition fit the definition of ephemeral by illustrating time as an informing factor. Rooted in Land Art, Michel Bachelet’s Les Plaques Tectoniques, Carol Padberg’s Urban Biocloth Quilt, and François Fréchet’s Lautus naturalis addressed earth-based evolution. Padberg enriched topsoil through the metamorphosis of organic material. Bachelet engaged the changes of the earth’s shifting plates…see the entire review in the print version of July/August’s Sculpture magazine.
