One Earth

This piece was cre­ated to tran­scend board­ers and strengthen the earthly pulse desir­ing world peace, equal­ity and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion.

The Tile Project : Tran­sCul­tural Exchange 2004

As part of the project, I col­lab­o­rated with Leo Hobaica, Jr. Tran­sCul­tural Exchange sent me to Israel to work with Karmela Berg and assist her in imple­ment­ing her Tile Project instal­la­tion at Tel Aviv Uni­ver­sity.

For my tile, par­tic­i­pants from around the world made a soil trade. A Kit was sent to them con­tain­ing ster­il­ized French soil and cer­e­mo­nial tools. They dug a small hole in the ground where they live and planted the French soil. The empty vile was then refilled with soil from their coun­try. After com­plet­ing this sim­ple, poetic task a “One Earth” flag was planted, along with a plaque stat­ing “This artist ini­tia­tive tran­scends board­ers to strengthen the earthly pulse desir­ing world peace, equal­ity and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion”. Par­tic­i­pants pho­tographed this ini­tia­tive and sent me their soil sam­ple.

Part of the soil from each par­tic­i­pant has been mixed into resin to make tiles. This fusion sym­bol­i­cally cre­ates “One Earth”, break­ing bor­ders that, in our esti­ma­tion, are arbi­trary, fab­ri­cated, and con­trolled. The soil remain­ing in each of the returned vials will be sealed in its con­tainer, marked with its place of ori­gin, doc­u­mented, and dis­played as part of a future exhi­bi­tion.