ANNE PERCOCO: TERRARIUM
Anne Percoco, Terrarium @ ArtBloc, Jersey City, NJ
SILVERMAN and Hamilton Square Condominium Association in association with ArtBloc present ANNE PERCOCO: TERRARIUM
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, September 5, 2014, 7–9 p.m.
Hamilton Square
232 Pavonia Avenue
Jersey City, NJ 07302
201.435.8000
Exhibition on view September 5, 2014–ongoing
Anne Percoco’s Terrarium transforms an industrial shipping container into an enclosed ecosystem. With the help of the Hamilton Park Greens Group volunteers, she has filled the containers with weeds harvested from nearby Hamilton Park. Throughout the two-month project run, the installation has been in a constant state of flux as the artist plants, waters, and maintains this living ecosystem while collecting seeds from plants for limited edition seed packets.
Percoco sees Terrarium as a foil to the domesticated space of the park, a wild place within the neighborhood, encouraging viewers to look at the overlooked, and to be aware of the complex wilderness growing in the peripheries of Jersey City. This project is about collective contribution as it is about habitation and biodiversity.
The installation is unassuming during the daytime but takes on otherworldly qualities at night with the activation of pink LED grow lights and a sound installation by Michael Durek. This ethereal quality invites viewers to consider the plants as having an interior life and an agency of their own.
Work In Progress: Terrarium
The score features minimal, droning sounds reminiscent of the hums and tones that form the background of our sonic experience of cities, while occasionally becoming more cinematic and tonal. The skillful layering of these elements makes them seem almost natural.
Ultimately, this project is about what is undervalued from our daily urban environment, how our value systems interact with both humans and non-humans, and, as Gary Snyder wondered, “where do we start to resolve the dichotomy of the civilized and the wild?”
Percoco makes art not by creating something new, but by reorganizing what’s already there. Her process is resourceful, responsive, and playful. She spends as much time exploring, collecting materials, and researching as she does making. She makes full use of each material’s unique formal properties as well as historical, cultural and environmental resonances.
Percoco studied at Drew University, Madison, NJ (BA 2005) and Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (MFA 2008). Percoco was born in Boston, MA, in 1982. She lives and works in Jersey City, NJ.
For more information on Anne Percoco, or to contact the artist, please visit her website: annepercoco.com.
A rendering of Anne Percoco’s installation Terrarium. Courtesy of the artist.
Contributors:
Musician Michael Durek created original sound design for this installation. For more information on the artist, go here: michaeldurek.com.
Filmmaker John Dunstan will project an original video to the side of ArtBloc during the opening reception. For more information on Dunstan, go here: vimeo.
Partners:
SILVERMAN is a New Jersey real estate developer, creatively rebuilding urban areas, supporting the arts, while building neighborhoods.
ArtBloc is a mobile art gallery and performance space built from two repurposed shipping containers – it is a dynamic community venue for art, music, dance and theater.
Brendan Carroll is an artist, writer and curator. He organizes a rotating exhibition program of prominent and up-and-coming artists for SILVERMAN.
Transportation Map:
Transportation Directions from Lower Manhattan to Hamilton Square Condominiums
Brendan Carroll 
Reblogged this on Found Frequencies.