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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. un: arian examples, works of the xtro reaim grou , Wi also be presente ater. ! Hung pl ks of the xtro realm group, will also be p di
