Revival Field
From 1990 until 1993 the first environmental research project Revival Field was developed. It occurred in link with university research fields.
Revival Field (1990 - 93)
Revival Field (1990 - 93) begins in link to a key moment in the artist's biography. Mel Chin had earlier completed a museum exhibition, where the artworks reflected his research until that time in comparing different notions of the alchemical transformation from eastern and western thought. He decided to stop further exhibitions in that vein, in order to focus on a period of research and self-enquiry as to the role of the artist, and how to apply the actual principles of his interests directly into the formation and process as the 'sculpture' itself. His research drew him to chance upon the idea of plants that draw metal from soils (see 'hyperaccumulators' below). With this metaphorical and real alchemical transformative element, came his own revival of interest in a kind of artistic practice, which is also seen in the title of his first ensuing project in 1990 Revival Field.
See also website "Class Reading: Revival Field" www.soils.wisc.edu/...For more context detail see interview with Mel Chin
The project Revival Field thus originates with Chin's application of his interests as a model themselves for artistic practice. Thus he sets up sustainable ecological systems as models of thought to be applied in diverse contexts, to address issues of habitat devastation, restoration and sustaining biodiversity.
'hyperaccumulators'
Chin's project focused on plants known as 'hyperaccumulators', a term which refers to their property to draw heavy metal residues from the soil. Research into these plants would be beneficial for the possibilities of cleansing polluted soil, and was conceived in close cooperation with Rufus L. Chaney, senior research scientist at the United States Department of Agriculture. The selection of the landsite "Pig's Eye landfill" in St. Paul, Minnesota, was made by the "National Priority List for the US Environmental Protection Agency Cleanup" . On this stretch of polluted land were planted hyperaccumulators which accumulate cadmium, zinc and lead.
See also website: Don Krug "Art &Ecology, Ecological Restoration, Revival Field" (www.getty.edu/...)
art+science
Revival Field was to be unique in many levels. As it was defined through the category 'art', it was able to bypass - or easier negotiate - a myriad of otherwise unnegotiatable bureaucratic obstacles that had made it until then impossible to access these plants and actually field test them. The artwork offered the actual first testing of hyperaccumulators plants in real conditions outside a laboratory, the data supporting articles published in scientific publications. In its support from the Walker Art Center, and through its cooperation with Prof. Chaney, and the various materials it brought together in its three years, Chin's application of different dynamic, interrelated fields and processes being joined together in one ecology was evident.
See also website 'art+science on Mel Chin' (www.satorimedia.com/fmraWeb/chin.htm)Chin noted that with this project, now the aesthetic of the whole project has been developed in hand with the transformative processes . This ecological sculpture, according to Chin, relates to how the polluted soil is sculpted away by the plants and leaves as an aesthetic product a revived ecological system. The sculpture pertains to something that has potential for injury or death because of chemical and industrial practices, and then is brought back to life using something that is found naturally.
For more context detail see interview with Mel Chin