PLATONICS + FAILED PLATONICS

Gourd House

White flowered, hardshell bottle gourds grown in the Gourd House were the first experiment with living plants conducted at the Huron Lab Garden begun in 1989 and continuing until 2004 on Chicago's west side.

Prime cultivar

Using historical and experimental techniques, gourds were grown into wire cages and plaster moulds producing a series permanent shaped gourd works, referencing themes such as idealization, memory, and regret – both psychological and ecological.

Bottle gourds,(Lagenaria siceraria) are the oldest cultivars in the world. The Chinese have grown them into molds for centuries. The Japanese grow "ideal" ones known as Senarri with strict proportions. This is all possible because gourds they become "woody" and "remember " to hold the shape after the fruit has dried, plant memory.

Questioning the nature of success.

Platonic Solids and Failed Platonics are polyhedra grown in wire cages, emerging to reseamble the Neolithic versions. These have been interpreted as opting for the pre-western, which has gone on to influence the deadly nightshade works of the 1990's. Imprinted Gourds were grown into plaster moulds with words utilizing the embodied memory of the gourd as it grows from a vegetative to a woody material. Other shaped and caged gourds were grown relating to Whitehead's concurrent TOPOLOGY prints and sculptures .