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Reporting from: https://exhibits.library.cornell.edu/mud-painting/feature/view

View

A 2-leg steel and glass bench framing the microbiology of Randall's Island, NY and the Manhattan Skyline.

58"x36"x24"

Corten Steel, white maple, glass, silicone, Randall's Island mud & water, eggs, newspaper, chalk

Commissioned by NYC Parks

Randall's Island, NYC, 2013

View, is a public bench that frames both the human industry of the Manhattan skyline and the microbial industry of Randall’s Island Park’s Little Hell Gate Inlet salt marsh.

As bacteria can divide every twenty minutes, they can provide an observable model system for us to contemplate how patterns of reproduction, consumption, and waste have feedback on the very ecosystem upon which the culture depends. In this pairing of the micro and the macro world, a viewer may rest and contemplate how microbial cultures synthesize and recycle life within a finite ecosystem.

one leg!
one leg!

All photos taken by Benjamin Heller

Check out my process blog posts for this NYC parks project: