Raze Bloom, 2015
Dimensions variable
Materials: turf, rubber bark chippings, gravel, pebbledash, concrete, aluminium scaffolding, liquid storage tanks, aquatic plants, Co2, solenoid valves, air pump, vinyl tubing, air stones, dual spectrum grow lamps
Hales Gallery, Urbanek, Burlington Gardens Festival
Photo: Charlie Littlewood, Maciej Urbanek, Artist
Raze Bloom is a commentary on our contrived engagement with nature within our built environment. The work references the current proliferation of development sites, in which entire neighbourhoods are ‘razed’ to make space for new, rapidly built, constructions, both in its title and in the installation’s material / formal presence. Raze Bloom becomes a synthetic eco-system requiring its own life support systems to sustain it within the gallery space.
Raze Bloom was originally commissioned by Kate Goodwin for the Burlington Gardens Architecture Festival in 2015. The piece was then shown alongside Maciej Urbanek in 10 One Night Stands at gallery Urbanek in Clapton (now located in Sydenham Hill). Raze Bloom was then shown in the exhibition Rachael Champion, Agnes Denes, Rachel Pimm, at Hales Gallery, London.