Lupe Martinez and Lois Klassen

Interview with the Artists

A Conversation between Lois Klassen, Lupe Martinez and Heidi Nagtegaal // A Year in Review, a Two person exhibit at the Hammock Residency, January 3, 2010

Lupe Martinez is a recent participant in the Hammock Residency, December 2009, and has invited Lois Klassen, a previous Hammock Residency Participant, and the creator of Garden Gnomad, to join her for a two-person exhibition January 3.

Heidi Nagtegaal:  Hello!  How did the two of you experience your time in the Hammock Residency?

Lois Klassen:  When I think back on the Hammock Residency from late last summer, I remember generosity and wealth: the money plant and graciousness.  During my first visit to Heidi’s little communal garden with the Garden Gnomad I noticed a stash of money plant seed pods (those lovely transparent circular seed pods) piled haphazardly near the back lane.  It made me think that the generosity surrounding Heidi’s motives for running a residency for artists was like a pile of wealth, spilling all over the garden and into the lane.  I used the residency time to rest, write and to meet with my dear friend Madeleine Wood.  I also loved the long talks that Heidi and I had about our somewhat similar backgrounds in large rural, religious families.

Heidi Nagtegaal:  I loved those talks!  I remember not wanting them to end.  Gardens seem to me to be magical - albeit scientific, botanical studies, etc. - the process of plant growth is still beyond me, and I am continually surprised by how my plants grow, what grows, what doesn’t grow, what flourishes, what dies, what ends up taking root in from my compost soil.  Generosity and surprise are definitely words that express my gardening experience.  Growing up rural and around farming communities brings a different twist to my gardening, it seems almost wussy.  For them, it was their income, for me it’s the glory of eating squash from my garden.  Of course, the religious aspect brings the whole “mystery” of the garden to a different level, as you are taught to see God as birthing the plants, just as God births new life through you.  If you read the Bible, the agricultural imagery is incredible.

Lupe Martinez:  To me meeting Heidi and, through her, having the opportunity to attend the Hammock Residency has been a revealing experience in my intent to understand Vancouver’s approach to art.  Coming from a Latin background such as Argentina, is inevitable for me to feel somehow a gap between the way I express myself, both through language and through art, and the way in which I am able to decode what I experience from my present environment: Vancouver.

In my first visit to Heidi’s Studio I took a walk around the house and I immediately felt drawn towards the Garden.  I spent a few hours there listening, watching and allowing a visualization of what stories that space was willing to tell me.  I instantly felt connected to it and to its memories in a playful way that transcends understanding.  Heidi’s Garden is filled with magic!  And that’s what I pursue in my work, the possibility to work with language, images and symbols to access a spectrum beyond what we already know.

LK:  Last night, I was at the double feature at our local 2nd-run theatre (The Hollywood).  I saw Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story followed by the animation Nine.  Reflecting on those movies and the latest disappointment of the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, I am wondering, do you indulge in apocalyptic thinking?  Does it motivate your gardening practices?

LM:  It’s hard for me to engage into apocalyptic thinking really.  I definitely have thoughts about it, and often feel frustrated or scared by how much garbage pollutes our waters, and how much unnecessary suffering there is for a lot of people, how many species are endangered (etc), but honestly I always come to the conclusion that the focus should be in oneself, in myself.  There are around 6,791,500,000 human beings in the world.

How would it be a world with more and more human beings doing what they have to do, caring for their own lives in a conscious way, not lying compulsively to be liked and being more in touch with what they feel instead of spending time watching T.V. or shopping frenetically every new cell phone that comes out, so that they can spend more time distracted and checking emails and facebook?  It drives me nuts!

I guess, Lois, that this does motivate me.  I come to realize every time that the best I can do is go to my Studio and work.  Get my things together and pursue my convictions, which I trust are good.  And certainly continue to be curious and eager to relate to mystery, through art, observation and relationships, through the willingness to discover more and more.

LK:  Thank you Lupe.  Your sense of wonder is inspiring.  I also think that fear of the unknown or dread for the known (inevitable) are terrible motivators.  I garden because it is a mystery; an emergent skill that motivates me to learn more. I have a huge admiration for people who hold the special ability to amass gardening (and other food production) knowledge that endure and grow through all kinds of conditions (weather, infestations, even economic and political vagaries, etc).  Part of Garden Gnomad was to hear from those people and to honor their particular skills.

What do you think are important in gardens that occupy public places (like patio and roof top gardens).  Should they focus on food, open access, sequestering carbon, animal and insect habitat, spiritual retreat, looking good, or what?

HN:  Gardens are a larger symbol for agriculture in general.  In 1900, about 39% of Americans lived on farms, in Before the Industrial Revolution the majority of people were directly related to agriculture and food sources, in 1990, only 2% of Americans were farmers.   Simultaneously, the size of the farms went from 60 hectares in 1900 to 200 hectares in 1990.  Less workers, bigger farms, less connection in general with agriculture due to a lack of need - someone else is doing it.

LM:  I find this so interesting, and somehow I feel a little bit off the edge of where you are coming from.  I go to the Korean store that’s close to my house to buy the groceries.  I can be that kind of person that would rather buy there to save time instead of walking four blocks to the Organic Market that’s up the street.

Public Gardens are such an amazing privilege.  The process in gardening is definitely a way to connect to something sacred and it can be almost metaphysical but it also produces something very concrete and/or functional: in this case food.  It’s different when it comes to art and symbols, don’t you think?

HN:  For me, gardening is part of all of the things you’ve mentioned above, but I do feel like you would have some better things to say about this, since you are mid masters studies on these issues, in the vortex of:  art, activism, environmental, gardens, public interaction/sculpture end of things, with a focus on real time.

LK:   During the Garden Gnomad project I had a sense that though urban planners and funders love the idea of public gardens, green roofs, and community gardening, we are getting a lot of token garden spaces.  I am wondering if we are settling for too little?  I am wondering if we should be more serious about urban food production and agriculture?  I am wondering if people who have lovingly tended small container gardens in marginal public spaces will begin to develop skills and desire for food production that will extend beyond the potential of their small cedar boxes on parking lots?  Or are these temporary garden spaces a way of limiting the development of skills for and interest in sustainable food production?  A number of garden spaces will become residential developments once the housing market recovers, so it will be interesting to see how the gardeners respond.

HN:  People are generally satisfied with too little, in my mind.  We need something revolutionary and we settle for token pieces.  ”Freedom of Speech” relegated to designated areas at election time, specific booths at the Olympics where you can voice your opinion (in support of or against), etc.  In relationship to gardening, we don’t even have GMO labeling on our foods - how do you know what you are buying and then putting into your body?

HN:  In many ways, Lois and Lupe, where you are in your practices are very different.  Lois, your Garden Gnomad project has been thoughtfully executed, received funding, performed, interacted, and knit various communities together through your art practice.  Lupe, this particular project that you are exploring in the Hammock Residency is fairly fresh, new, and this piece is more of a hint of places you are to go.

Both of you are Banff participants; Lois, before you were in the Hammock, and Lupe, afterwards (Lupe leaves for Banff the day after the exhibit).  While in the Hammock Lois spent her time reflecting on her project, and wrapping up loose ends, where as Lupe is spending it cracking open new ideas that are more like experiments to flush through while in Banff.  It’s a neat contrast.

LK:  I like the idea of situating HR alongside the infamous Banff Centre for the Arts!  Banff is truly an awesome opportunity for artists from around the world.  It is credited so often for being the site of new work or critical changes in direction.  I found it to be very challenging and inspiring.  The generosity of the resources at the New Media Institute were very important in getting Garden Gnomad put together. But it is also run as a large resort, with a distinctly institutional feel.  I love the idea of Hammock Residency being the radical sister residency for at least two of Banff’s artists!

HN:  The Garden/Backyard area attracted the both of you immediately, albeit with different takes: Lois from an anthropological angle, and Lupe from a psychological one.   Both sharing an activist edge, of pushing things until you can’t ignore them, and taking a Jungian angle to the subjects you approach.  In this context, the garden becomes as a space for growth, and a symbol for growth, a symbol also for the mystery of process and production.

LM:  I think Heidi made a point by highlighting my psychological approach vs. Lois’s anthropological view.  My realm is the symbolic. That is my Garden. I have started studying Jung’s theory, and this has radically affected my work and lets say… cosmo-vision.  I feel Lois, that your project is almost anthropologically based and art is the tool to reach through. That is so great!

LK:  I haven’t thought of Garden Gnomad as anthropological before. It is a bit of a weak measurement tool, and the data is almost meaningless —just close-up photos of gardens with labels.  They could be urban gardens anywhere.  Instead, I had meant for it to be a dialogic work, something that values the conversations that surround gardening as much as a ripened harvest.

Another community artist, Simon Levin, made an interesting observation about Garden Gnomad.  He said that the equipment and the modest demands that I put on the participants demonstrated a kind of futile attitude towards community art practice.  He thought that I was making plain how overly ambitious community art projects can get: my little cart would never get through all of the urban gardens, nor store all of the data.  In this way, Garden Gnomad is a poor anthropological tool!  I appreciated Simon’s observation because I think that community art, just like anthropology, needs to be grounded in criticality and humility!  It is true that I wanted to make obvious the humble action (mobility and conversation) of a single artist inside a large social movement: urban-based community gardening.

LM:  When I come to reflect on my work then, I realize that to me the meaning in my work is in creating a space where to produce symbols: a body of work that contributes to generate images that can enable the connection to a spectrum where change is possible.  Art is such a powerful source for challenging systems and beliefs.  It’s a tool to breakthrough paradigms and institutionalized ideas.  We live fragmented lives, because we are fragmented inside.  We live our lives in a much narrower way than our whole potential.  I believe that there are several ways to expand boundaries.  One is art.

So, talking about public gardens, I wish there were so many more Public Art Spaces available in the city.  There are Community Gardens, but I haven’t found any Community Public Art Park in Vancouver yet!  I mean, is it really not as important? Is it not a social right or need as well?

I come from a city like Buenos Aires.  With a very European concept of culture, and in fact all of our cultural and educational system has been imported from European countries such as France or Spain.  I grew up in a city where you don’t need to look for art… you just can’t avoid it.  To us, even if you are into art or not, culture is a right.  I mean we don’t even think about this, it’s just there, everywhere.  Sometimes I ask to myself, “Am I losing my mind? Is it really that important?”

How do you relate to the social role of culture and art (individually and collective)? And how does this translate in your work?

HN:  The social role of culture and art (individually and collective) is ultimate focus of the Hammock Residency.  You come here, you work through whatever it is you want to work through, self directed, more or less, and you can delve into an individual practice in someone else’s space (HR) or you can get collaborative, or collective in collecting feedback, meeting people, etc.  A really neat network of people and relationships start to happen, as well as an understanding about your personal practice, because you are rubbing up against such different folks - even if you are completely lost, you end up thinking “that’s not how I do things” and narrowing your focus a bit, by default.

LK:  Art is a materialization of culture, so I have trouble imagining it as being anything other than social.  Even when it is made as an individual’s desire to represent something intensely personal, it is coded with the highly sophisticated communication systems that we all share (and continue to develop as a social people).  Nurturing artists and our ways of communicating is very important to me as well.  It is one of the ways that meanings are made in art.  Someone recently said that there are actually very few meanings that are acceptable in artworks at any given time.  It is a sad realization to think about art’s limitations, but it also points to how important it is to be in communication with artists and cultural workers: we work together to make certain meanings relevant and timely.

LM:  That makes me understand so much clearer what I was grasping.  Thanks Lois. And I also thank Heidi for facilitating such an amazing space as HR.  It certainly contributes to enhance our art community.

LK:  Thank you both for combining these ideas and our artworks into a conversation in the middle of winter.

HN:  Thank you two for participating, and being such generous participants!  It’s been such a pleasure working with you, talking with you, and I can barely wait to see the Hammock Residency transformed by your Backyard Project (Lupe) and Garden Gnomad Installation (Lois)!  I am proud to have you here.

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Please join us on January 3, 2010 from 4 to 8pm for a one-night installation by Hammock Residency Alumni, Lupe Martinez and Lois Klassen.

For more information, please visit www.hammockresidency.com