Revival Field, 1990 [Enlarge in New Window]

Mel Chin: Revival Field

The history of art is studded with inventive individuals who drew on the latest scientific developments to create their work. But in the case of Mel Chin's Revival Field, the process has been just the opposite. Over the past decade, Chin has used the strategies of contemporary art-making to help jump-start a new field of scientific inquiry.

The concept behind Revival Field is a simple one. A plot of tainted ground is planted with "hyperaccumulators," plants that naturally draw heavy metal toxins from the soil. They not only cleanse and restore the contaminated land, but once harvested and incinerated, the plants' ash yields metals that can be recycled and reused.

"There was no scientific evidence from a replicated field test to support hyperaccumulation when I started this," says the North Carolina-based artist. "The first Revival Field was essential to provide data in order to create a technology. That's why it was designed as a replicated field test. The results confirmed that there was uptake of heavy metals (zinc and cadmium) by plants in this field."

Since the first Revival Field was installed in a Minnesota landfill in 1991, three others have been staged, including one on land next to a Pennsylvania Superfund site where zinc cadmium had been smelted. "It was four square miles of wasteland," Chin recalls. From the beginning, his primary collaborator, agronomist Rufus L. Chaney, has supervised much of the data collection, disseminating the findings in the scholarly journal Agricultural Research. The research done in Revival Field, says Chin, has been crucial in generating broader scientific interest in hyperaccumulators.

In terms of art-making, Chin compares his process to that of a sculptor. "If Michelangelo takes a block of marble and starts to make a David, he carves it and carves it. The art is this idea transformed into reality," he says. "But what happens if your material isn't marble, but a toxic, dead medium--earth that can't sustain life? Scientific process, not artistic process, has to be the tool. To take that soil and make it live again, to sculpt a diverse ecosystem from it--that to me is beautiful."

For Chin, the process, not an aesthetic form but the transformation of a ravaged ecology, is the primary art goal. But over the years, the project has given rise to additional works, which range from photo documentation and QuickTime movies to delicate botanical prints of hyperaccumulating plants--executed with the same heavy metals that the plants are pulling out of the soil.

In a career that's spanned more than 25 years, Chin has turned out a variety of artworks, from drawings and multiples to monumental sculptures, installations, and even video games. Like Revival Field, many of the works reflect his long-standing interest in ecology and agriculture.

With support from Creative Capital, Revival Field is currently being staged on a plot of land just outside Stuttgart, Germany, where it's monitored by collaborating scientists from nearby University of Hohenheim. As part of the project, Chin is preparing a book entitled Hyper: The Strange Nature of Plants, Metals, and Human Beings. It will present scientific papers on hyperaccumulators and also look at the history and mythologies of plants and heavy metals--for instance, a certain species of daisies that African coppersmiths have long used as a means of locating copper-rich soil.

"We're in the concept phase of the book design," says Chin, "trying to figure out whether to have some things pop up, like botanical specimens, or to have die-cut or sculpted pages." While conveying a full range of scientific data, Chin is looking to go beyond the usual graphs and charts. "How do you make a science book art?" he muses. "One of the challenges is to show both."

Revival Field has had a far-reaching impact on Chin's artistic practice. "What was really freeing was that it made me ask myself: What about doing a project that may have to be completed after you're dead? Because for me, the artwork isn't done until the field is clean." Taking this longer view, he says, "freed me from the constraint of 'Oh, the art show is on the 31^st of March--better finish the work by then.' The art of Revival Field, is also the art of cooperation and collaboration. I realized that art didn't just have to be my creative vision." Key to that realization was seeing "how art is only part of human development, not the whole picture. And I want to be part of it--the process where ideas form and become part of the culture."

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THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Visual > Installation | Asian Themes | Products & Consumerism | Labor | Environment | Science & Technology | Southeast | 2001