Rose Clancy
Lives and Works in Pittsburgh
Rose Clancy is a sculptor, site-specific installation artist and gardener currently working with the reclamation of neglected spaces. Her most recent works include GardenLab@516, a two-year outdoor garden installation at the Mattress Factory; I will see you in the Garden at Moxie DaDa Gallery, a 10-month outdoor garden installation; and the upcoming community garden initiative Main Street USA in collaboration with Future Tenant and the West End Village.
“My work in this exhibition comments on my belief that individual effort and action can add up to a powerful collective whole, which has the potential to be a catalyst for positive and effective change in our society.
The ingredients for Local Soup (served at the exhibition’s opening reception) came together through the individual gardening efforts of myself, Diana Nelson Jones, Kirsten Ervin and Will Simmons. We combined the vegetable harvests from our gardens to create three soups chock full of individual ingredients to make a collective whole that is soup.
The Food for Thought Banquet Table (pictured above) is a collection of individual parts and pieces of discarded furniture — reconstructed into a new whole. The collection of individual parts was easy, but the construction of the table was not. I wrestled with varying lengths, strengths, ages, and thicknesses of the wooden parts while trying to keep intact those very qualities that defined the individuality of each part. Problem solving was complex on many different levels. At times I questioned whether my effort was really going to be worth it in the end — would my effort really matter to anyone but me?
I am sharing this story with you because I feel that the road we are traveling on concerning the future of food, is going to present us with a complex and difficult journey — and that even bringing together the individual parts (us — you and me) to work together for the benefit of the whole, is going to be difficult. It will be work. Hard work. And I feel that we will question whether it is worth the effort.
But I feel it will be worth the effort. Our future is worth the effort. The future of our descendants is worth the effort.
I feel that just as the individual parts of this table sacrificed part of their individuality for the strength of the collective whole, we too will have to be flexible and possibly give up a bit of ourselves in order to effectively create positive change for the benefit of the collective whole that is the human race.”
Local Soup Talks: Conversations with local gardeners about sustainable gardening practices.
Food City Fellows | Boyle Street Garden | Part One
Food City Fellows | Boyle Street Garden | Part Two
