Oldal 225 [225]
NATURE, ART, ACTIVISM
Judit Farkas
Introduction
Regarded as the pioneer of environmental art, Agnes Denes, of Hungarian origin
(Budapest, 1930,) created her work Rice/Tree/Burial in 1968: she sowed a field with
rice, chained trees together, and buried a few haikus in Sullivan county, USA. In
her interpretation, rice symbolized vitality, the chained trees stood for the human
disruption of natural processes, and the buried haikus indicated that human
creativity was inspired by the Earth (Denes 1993: 388). In Wheatfield — A
Confrontation, perhaps her most famous work, she sowed wheat in a two-hectare
area with the assistance of volunteers in 1982. Earlier, this area was a landfill just
a block away from Wall Street, from where the Statue of Liberty could also be seen.
Four months later the wheat was harvested, yielding 1000 pounds of grain, which
the artist distributed among inhabitants of 28 cities during the exhibition titled
The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger. In her wording, this work
‘[...] represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, economics [...] (and) referred
to mismanagement and world hunger. It was an intrusion into the citadel, a
confrontation of High Civilisation. Then again it was also Shangri-la, a small
paradise, one’s childhood, a hot summer afternoon in the country, peace” (Denes,
cited: Thornes 2008: 403)
In 1992, she planted 11,000 blue spruce trees with 11,000 people in Ylöjärvi,
Finland, in a former gravel pit as part of an artistic project titled Tree Mountain:
A Living Time Capsule (1992 -). The trees were planted according to mathematical
principles, and for 400 years they will remain under the protection of the Finnish
government (till the forest reaches maturity). “[...] the trees live on through the
centuries — stable and majestic, outliving their owners or custodians who created
the patterns and the philosophy but not the tree[s]” (Denes 1993: 391)
In her works, Agnes Denes wishes to connect a philosophical concept with
ecological concerns; for several decades now, her works have concerned the dangers
of neglecting nature and the urgency of restoring degraded places (Denes 1993).
Her oeuvre is the epitome of all works of contemporary environmental art which
are conceptual, open-ended, participatory, multimedia, socially committed and
activist projects (Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 148)!
In their {ntroduction to Environmental Humanities, co-authors J. Andrew Hubbell
and John C. Ryan formulate this question — apropos of Denes’ work: Where is the
line between art, agriculture, and activism? When does the planting of wheat or trees
become art? (Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 147). The answer is approached from the direction
of Environmental Humanities (hereafter EH), environmental issues, and activism.
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