Luftwerk—Chicago, IL

Medium: Mixed media

Location: Joutras Gallery, Regenstein Center

Artist statement: A Summer Journey is an installation that captures fragments of the landscape we inhabit. The work is an attempt to imagine a time when prairie land occupied two-thirds of the midwestern landscape, when it was expansive and rich in biodiversity, a holistic interconnected ecosystem, with healthy soil, abundant flora, and myriads of bees and butterflies. We think of this as a practice of re-finding—reflecting on what was and can be again.

Andrew S. Yang—Sunderland, MA

Medium: Materials include: greenhouse, vintage card catalog, ceramics, plaster, papier-mâché, collage, books, flasks, dice, custom puzzles, bamboo poles, seeds 

Location: Lawn near Thomas English Walled Garden

Artist statement: As the Earth changes faster than life can keep up, scientists seek biodiverse possibilities for the future. The greenhouse, called the “Gleanhouse,” celebrates the crucial role seed banks play in such efforts. If we represent biodiversity as a spectrum of colors, then seed banks are like prisms that help bring about ecologically diverse landscapes, as represented on the lawn through multicolored clusters of poles. The dispersal and crossbreeding of rare plants gives rise to more genetically diverse—and thus more resilient—plant populations into the future.

Luftwerk—Chicago, IL

Medium: Backlit digital print, transparencies

Location: Visitor Center

Artist statement: How is nature’s palette composed? Is there more to the colors we perceive in nature? The scientific process of chromatography—Greek for “color writing”—inspired this artwork. Here, prairie grass, seemingly a single color, reveals component pigments: green chlorophyll and orange and yellow carotenoids. Look up and around—patterns of color appear like abstract watercolor paintings, transforming the Visitor Center into a canvas for visible and hidden prairie hues. Experience nature’s palette—every shade, tone, and tint—in the Garden’s Dixon Prairie. Ecologists work through the seasons to restore this important habitat.

Essentials Creative—Austin, TX

Medium: Installation art, digital prints on linen, photography, collage, graphic design, and illustration

Location: Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden and the Farm on Ogden

Artist statement: Rhizomatic is a collaborative art installation between Essentials Creative collective and the scientists and staff at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The project is inspired by the rhizome as a philosophical concept developed by theorists Deleuze and Guattari. The installation weaves together cultural and scientific stories about diversity and collaboration. Featured plants in the artwork include ginkgo biloba, pawpaw, horsetail, white sage, eastern prairie fringed orchid, kernza, and amaranth. We aim to contribute to multicultural perspectives on plants, share the Garden’s scientific research, and explore rhizomes as a metaphor for interconnectedness.

Giovanni Aloi and Jenny Kendler—Chicago, IL

Medium: Gravel and soil mound with plant species native to Bell Bowl Prairie, cedar fence, recycled polyester “silk” flags with silk-screened pigment, upcycled poles, and hardware

Location: Eastside lawn of Dwarf Conifer Garden

Artist statement: Bell Bowl Prairie, an irreplaceable 8,000-year-old ecosystem, was substantially destroyed in the recent expansion of the Rockford Airport. In response, Giovanni Aloi and Jenny Kendler’s Through the Eye of the Unicorn—an installation inspired by the well-known Renaissance Unicorn Tapestries—encourages us to rethread our connections with nature. More than just memorializing, it urges us to engage in ecological preservation—from “freeing” grasslands in our own yards to restoring prairies statewide.

Highlighted Plants: