Peninsula Europe I, 2000-2004
Click here for flash video 4 min ”The Mountain in the Greenhouse”
Peninsula Europe: The High Ground.
Bringing forth a new state of mind. 2000-2003.
This work addresses the high grounds of Europe from the perspective of its drain basins, ecosystems and waters. For this work the alpine definition of high grounds as the place where the trees stop was abandoned, and instead, the high grounds were defined as the place where the rivers begin. Once so defined, a singular new shape emerged from the trans-European landscape. It turns out that 1000 billion cubic meters of water flows downhill from this shape. The work proposes the reforesting of the high grounds from the perspectives of conserving waters, purifying waters and generating biodiversity.
Seeing
The geophysical heartland of Europe
As a peninsula
Extending from the continent of Euraisa
With Ocean boundaries
Cojoined by the Dnestr and Vistula rivers
separating it from the Russian plain
making it almost an island
Peninsula Europe
Contemplating its domain
The high grounds emerge
As both pattern and icon
Thinking
Contemplating the pattern
Reflecting on the properties of its domain I said, It’s an array of drain basins cradled by the mountains formed by the pouring forth of the rivers that begin in the high grounds. You said, If the forests were left to re-grow and the grasslands released from overgrazing Then the resulting bio-mass Could help purify The outpouring of water. And you said, Then bio-diversity ribbons again can grow across the high grounds, from the Pyrenees to the Carpathians I asked Where would you begin? And you said, Where the terrain permits and the will exists. Choose your mountain.
This work is a 3-4,000 square foot exhibition. It has catalogs in English, German, Dutch and French. Distributed variously to the EU Parliament and German Parliament.
Enabled/managed by: The Schweisfurth Stiftung, Peninsula Europe
Grants from: The Culture Section of the European Union and The Deutsche Umwelt Bundesstiftung in Osnabrück.
Scientists: Dr. Wilhelm Barthlott, Nees-Institute for Biodiversity of Plants and the Director of the Bonn Botanical Gardens, Dr. Georg Grabherr, Department of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology, University of Vienna, Dr.Schneider-Jacoby, Euronatur.
Catalogs available from the Schweisfurth Stiftung and
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.