The creation and display of public art is a vital part of the mission of Bernheim to connect people with nature. Resident artists Mei-ling Hom and David McClelland are currently working with recycled straw and sisal twine to create a living sculpture installation which will be displayed in the new Edible Garden set to open May 17.
Organic farmers from the Allegany hills of western New York, the pair are spending 4 months at Bernheim pursuing the connection between art and the growing world using fungi as their medium of expression. By creating sculptures out of twisted and sewn straw ropes and inoculating them with different types of fungi some of which will fruit as mushrooms and some of which will form symbiotic relationships with green plants they are encouraging viewers to consider the vast underworld of microscopic life which enables all of the larger plants which we see in the landscape of Bernheim.
The installation in the Edible Garden will form a message in Morse Code. Right now, only our artists know the message, but you’ll have to come out and decipher it for yourself.
