Rabu, 02 September 2009

Zero Chimney - Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival - Taiwan 2008























2008 Guandu Inernational Outdoor Sculpture Festival – Taiwan

From the Critic, John K Grande, about the Work of Firman Djamil

Firman Djamil’s Zero Chimney is a powerful sculptural integration at Guandu. Rising up vertically from the ground, this chimney recall the factory smokestacks from the early days of industrialization, but Firman’s is a bio-sensitive chimney that includes corn seeds at its base, a food source that will become a growing part of the art. As part of his artistic process Firman performed a performance ritual that involved public participation an planting of the corn seeds at the opening of the 3rd annual Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival.

Zero Chimney likewise addresses the issue of alternative energy sources, notably the corn-based fuel known as Ethanol. Produced from maize or corn using an agrifuel process, the production of Ethanol is being contested for various reasons, notably that food sources for the world’s poor and disenfranchised are being converted into fuel, but also because water used to cultivate maize/corn for ethanol on huge farms, is not being directed towards our sustainable projects and for basic resource use. The production of one gallon or 3.7 liters of ethanol requires 6.345 liters of fresh water during the maize/corn growth and fermentation process, and there is also irrigation waste, and corresponding environmental damage.

A beautifully aesthetic bamboo construction at Guandu Nature Park, Zero Chimney is nature stack, one that no longer yields gas or carbon emissions in the form of Co2, but fresh air instead. An art with heard that will yield corn, to then be eaten by humans and songbirds, in indeed interactive in a most wholesome, universal and environmental way.

John K Grande, 2008


JOHN K GRANDE

- The author of Balance: Art and Nature (Black Rose Books, 1994 & 2004)
- Intertwining: Landscape Technology, Issue, Artists (Black Rose Books 1998)
- John Grande’s Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews with Environmental Artists
was published by State University of New York Press in 2004 ( www.sunypress.edu )
and in Spanish edition by the Fundacion Manrique in 2005
- John Grande’s Dialogues in Diversity Art from Marginal to Mainstream was
published by Pari Publishing (Italy) in North America in 2007 (
www.paripublishing.com )
- Art Allsorts: Writing on Art & Artists will be available in June 2008 at
www.lulu.com