M - Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

Ackroyd & Harvey
Green brick, green back (dollar bill), 2004, staygreen grass, clay, 3.3m x 2.1m, Rice Gallery, Houston, Texas, USA
� Dan Harvey and Heather Ackroyd
How do you feel your living sculptures, for
example, Fly Tower relate to Jeff Koons’ topiary
sculpture Puppy with regard to materials,
purpose and scale?
Fly Tower had a playful and dramatic nature, it had scale
and attitude not unlike Koons’ Puppy. The difference is,
we suspect, that the planting and nurturing of the
material is something we always do in person with a
team of assistants. We have never delegated this to
someone else with a set of instructions as to how to do
it. Ritual is important to us. The manual action of
touching the fabric when putting the clay and seed on
the building is important. It is very hands on. We have
resisted suggestion of making our process quicker by
mechanising it or commodification of the work by setting
up an extended art industry by getting others to do the
work. It is a messy, physically exhausting thing to do and
we enjoy it. Not sure how dirty Koon’s gets his hands?
Your practice encompasses a broad range of
interdisciplinary themes within the broader
context of environmental concerns. Tiger Grass
Coat and Tiger Skin address the histories and
commodification of animals while simultaneously
suggesting alternatives. Are you planning more
work on this theme?
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We are planning a new work for a proposed exhibition
later this year at the Royal Academy, Museum of
Mankind space. But it is still early days, and we haven’t
made the work....but Stranded certainly suggested a
complex relation between the mass hunting of whales
for oil for early industrialisation and lighting, and changes
in chemical nature of the oceans due to increased
absorbing of carbon dioxide released from burning fossil
fuels.
What are you currently working on?
Beuys’ Acorns (2007) is a new work in its infancy. We
have grown over 250 oak saplings from acorns gathered
from Joseph Beuys’ seminal artwork 7000 Oaks. In its
formative stage it is looking at the legacy of Beuys’ ideas
at the beginning of the 21 st century and looking at the
complexities of eco-system dynamics in relation to oak
trees and climate change. It is great to have a period of
research and to let the ideas emerge in their own time.
Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey are based in Surrey, England, and
have collaborated internationally since 1990. Sculpture, photography, biology
and ecology are some of the disciplines that intersect into their work, revealing
an intrinsic bias towards process and event, often reflecting both architectural
and scientific concerns. They have shown in diverse contexts across the UK,
Europe and the United States,
Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey were interviewed by Antennae in Spring 2009
� Antennae