Feel the Yarn Magazine has often talked about sustainability either through stories dealing with it directly or looking at the works of artists who consider the environment in what they do.
“Grassland Repair” by Linda Tegg, curated by Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright (in Still water, FTY #01) and Ricardo Ramos, Rethink de Xicogaivota (in Lost paradise, FTY #03).
The sensation i felt looking at grassland repair was one of dismay and fascination at the same time.
It was an installation in the australian pavillion at the architecture biennal in venice in 2018. The huge white space was completely occupied by more than sixty different kinds of grassy plants which are found in southeastern australia.
Only 1% of them still survive today. Grassland repair wants to the show the ecological devestation caused by urbanization and industrialization.
The plants inside the pavillion more or less occupied the same area of a typical australian family home that can be torn down by a bulldozer in an hour.
Rethink de Xicogaivota is an installation that immediately causes discomfort and the contrast between the sea of rubbish and solemn silence of Reservatório Da Mãe D’Água of Lisbon is very strong.
The building is a beautiful water tower built between 1746 and 1834 in which the waters of the local aqueduct were poured into. Ricardo ramos takes rubbish and plastic found on the local beaches and has them float in these waters which were once the water supply of the city. The sacred monochromy of the place is debased by strong and acid-like colours of the cans and bottles.
It is immediately clear that this is not only an ecologial environmental contamination, but a social and cultural destruction as well.
Photo and concept by Elisabetta Scarpini