Description
Kami, the embodiment of Vegetal Thoughts is a series of artworks developed over several years in different periods of Alan Tod’s artistic residencies at Cultivamos Cultura.
They are embodiments of the concept of forest-art, as a critic of the complex relationship between nature and society, conveying holistic approaches to sustainability and public health through bio-sculptures.
Each artwork explores different biotechniques with the expectation of a positive impact on the environment. The forest-art practice produces fertile soils as organic installation, in order to restore the life of devastated areas. It produces alive stories, direct action and new laws for forest to give new sort of protection for wild spaces.
The Forest-art aesthetic opens new state of mind where the discovery of plant's intelligence is challenging our perception of reality, beauty and life. It considers plant's behavior and develops direct collaboration with it to produce common knowledge and inter-species art.
The project is about transcending the Forest’s message in art, as much as it is transcending the art’s message in forest.
Kamis are Japanese gods and creatures from the forest.
They are perfect ambassadors for the forest-art sculpture, made of spirits, plants and men, the kamis are here delivering a message “ Forest is art , we are alive”.
The biggest challenge of this practice is to succeed in creating independent micro-ecosystems that could survive in sealed glass capsules as a metaphor of the fragility of nature and of our Anthropocene. Those elements of nature are collected in cities or roads and get transformed in creatures and their magic islands. Inspired by the tradition of Japanese banzai and micro-gardens, the “Kami” series combines biology and sculpture to support a self-fulfilling political message: “we are alive, and here is the Physical
possibility of life inside a dead body”. Those alive sculptures are representing the forest with its fragility and its magic. The plant decides how the sculpture should be shaped exactly like in the forest.
Forest-Art aesthetic opens new state of mind where the intelligence of the plant is challenging our perception of reality, beauty and life.
Keywords
Landscape | Beauty | Intimacy | Evolution | Biodiversity | Dialogue | Growth