Grand Arts: Fat of the Land

WASTE: Tavares Stachan
Tavares Strachan gave school children in the Bahamas an experience they are not likely to ever forget. His gift was wonder. It arrived, via FedEx, along side letters and packages, from its source 3,000 miles away. The work encapsulated the implications of its title, The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (2006).

In the midst of the sweltering July heat, Strachan unpacked a 4.5 ton block of Arctic ice. The ice was installed and kept from melting within a specially constructed freezer. It maintained Arctic conditions in the blazing tropics by harnessing the sun. Solar power maintained polar conditions in a sub-tropical environment, an amusing reversal of the hot-house technologies that protect southern vegetation from harsh northern climates.

For an entire year, Strachan included a performance component in his sculptural project. It took the form of “lectures” in elementary schools throughout the Bahamas. The lectures perpetuated the oral storytelling tradition that Strachan recalls when he was growing up in Nassau. He initiated the lecture performances seven months before the arrival of the ice to prepare the tropical children for a “hyper-real” encounter with polar ice, transforming mythic wonder into a material actuality that conveys cultural and biological histories.

On the wall behind him, Strachan hung a poster with the word success printed on it. He hoped it would convey to the children that achieving something as remarkable as transporting a chunk of the Arctic to the Bahamas requires “energy to resist some force. Being passive is failure."¹¹ He utilizes the term “hyperextension” to describe exceeding normal physical and psychological limits. In this instance, a hyper-extended physical action introduced a hyper-extended concept – that solar energy may create heat in the tropics, but it can also be harnessed to create polar cold.




From the Fat of the Land: Alchemies, Ecologies, Attractions WEALTH: Filip Noterdaeme (HoMu) POWER: Adam Zaretsky with Katherine Wright, Travis Watson, and Chase Pierson POTENTIAL: Spurse LUXURY: Fritz Haeg IMAGINATION: Lynus Young WASTE: Tavares Strachan COMMUNION: Micaela O’Herlihy
WASTE: Tavares Stachan Tavares Strachan gave school children in the Bahamas an experience they are not likely to ever forget. His gift was wonder. It arrived, via FedEx, along side letters and packages, from its source 3,000 miles away. The work encapsulated the implications of its title, The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (2006). In the midst of the sweltering July heat, Strachan unpacked a 4.5 ton block of Arctic ice. The ice was installed and kept from melting within a specially constructed freezer. It maintained Arctic conditions in the blazing tropics by harnessing the sun. Solar power maintained polar conditions in a sub-tropical environment, an amusing reversal of the hot-house technologies that protect southern vegetation from harsh northern climates. For an entire year, Strachan included a performance component in his sculptural project. It took the form of “lectures” in elementary schools throughout the Bahamas. The lectures perpetuated the oral storytelling tradition that Strachan recalls when he was growing up in Nassau. He initiated the lecture performances seven months before the arrival of the ice to prepare the tropical children for a “hyper-real” encounter with polar ice, transforming mythic wonder into a material actuality that conveys cultural and biological histories. On the wall behind him, Strachan hung a poster with the word success printed on it. He hoped it would convey to the children that achieving something as remarkable as transporting a chunk of the Arctic to the Bahamas requires “energy to resist some force. Being passive is failure."¹¹ He utilizes the term “hyperextension” to describe exceeding normal physical and psychological limits. In this instance, a hyper-extended physical action introduced a hyper-extended concept – that solar energy may create heat in the tropics, but it can also be harnessed to create polar cold.	Tavares Strachan "Desk from First Eruption" detail from The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want Raw calcium carbonate 2007
This ambitious project intersects with the “Fat of the Land” when Strachan considers the large material and energetic investment required to accomplish this sculptural feat. Was his project wasteful? He responds by asserting that unused and polluting by-products may be ‘waste’ but they are not ‘wasteful.’ According to Strachan, “Any raw experiment produces some waste. The work becomes interesting when there is waste. A lot of art making is a ‘waste’ of materials and time because it is experimental. I admire waste once the stakes are high enough. The desire and goal is more important than anything else. Unusable results are not waste. They are part of the input. We must redefine waste. It is all alchemical. Two-thousand years ago, the word ‘waste’ didn’t exist. Waste is an apocalyptic concept.” The by-products generated by creating The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want involve the long-distance transport and maintenance of exceedingly fragile materials. Phase one involved subjecting ice to sweltering heat. Phase two involves the project for Grand Arts. Strachan is creating fragile replicas of desks and chairs from every school he visited in the Bahamas. They are made with limestone chalk, a material as inherent to the Bahamas as ice is to the Arctic, not just geologically, but biologically and culturally as well. The creation myth of the Bahamas, for example, asserts that the Islands were spawned by great volcanic eruptions. They spewed the medium Strachan has chosen for these sculptures. Strachan’s furniture is so fragile that it must be driven with an escort all the way from Connecticut to Kansas. He is confident that The Distance Between offsets its environmental cost because it addresses a crucial and timely issue. He explains, “This project channels the idea of survival as the ice withstands harsh climate change in an attempt to find equilibrium... As I experienced the freeze of the arctic and survived, the freezer will use heat as a part of its survival. Here, alternate levels of opposites ascribe resilience, as human ability is paralleled by technological adaptation.”¹² Strachan concludes, “Large gestures will be witnessed. That is why I took the liberty. I love the idea that we can’t remind people about not wasting without wasting.” ¹³ ----------------------------- ¹¹Tavares Strachan, interview with the author, (11 May 2007). ¹²Tavares Strachan, “Conversation with Tavares Strachan and Susan Swenson” in The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (New York: Pierogi Gallery and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, 2006). ¹³Tavares Strachan, interview with the author, (11 May 2007).
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