Feburary 17th, 2018
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA
LED BY Liz Harvey
“There are human becomings, animal becomings, plant becomings, and so on. As they move together through time and encounter one another, these paths interweave to form an immense and continually evolving tapestry.” – Tim Ingold, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge, and Description, 2011
Focus: Wayfaring with plants as our guide: exploring and relating to plants in the urban environment, with the purpose of reinventing how we attune to plants in a busy urban core, while considering ideas of losing and finding.
Liz Harvey led participants on a walk through downtown San Francisco, and explored ideas of losing and finding, partially curated by herself, and partially open to chance. As we considered plants that had been lost from the area, including specific extinct and endangered plants and the life that depends on them (i.e., keystone species), we also considered the notion of being lost ourselves. The notion of finding was also explored: were we finding plants on the walk, or were they finding us? We explored the commonalities between plants and humans in forging empathy with plants, based on recent scientific research on plants’ senses, how plants communicate, and the rights of plants. Participants were given prompts to discuss, directives to guide their movement, and time to perceive and process along the way,
Liz Harvey is an interdisciplinary artist whose sculpture and performances have been shown in galleries, museums, and alternative spaces, including a national park, a riverbed, and an arroyo. Harvey works in sculpture and performance, often incorporating textiles to explore loss, history, and imagined futures. Harvey's work looks back and forward – she makes elegies and predictions. Her current work explores plant-human relationships, focused on human perceptions of the increased rate of plant extinctions, the ongoing decline of the planet’s biodiversity, mourning, and advocacy. Harvey has shown her work in numerous exhibitions in California as well as in New York and Italy. She has been an artist in residence at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, Montalvo Art Center, and the de Young Museum. Harvey is based in West Oakland.
Location: 595 Market Street, POPOS plaza is located on 2nd Street and Stevenson, San Francisco, CA
Start Time: 2pm
Duration: approx. 3 hours
Equipment: Journal, notebook, camera or related recording devices
Photography by Michal Wisniowski
