100 Plants, 100 Purposes, 1 Community

Installation and Performance

Soul Saturday

Hyde Park Art Center

August 4, 2018Here, at the Hyde Park Art Center, for one day, Cream Co. installed an improvisational sculpture made from 100 plants, each a unique variety, a wooden lattice, note cards, and an invitation.

That’s where we began and, while we knew the value of what we started with – the cost of the plants the time it took to set up the installation – we had no idea of its value. Would the humble shelves and plants add value? When we completed the installation for 100 plants, 100 purposes, it was apparent that a lovely structure was built, but the art had yet to begin. And, then, someone peered through the narrow shelves bountiful of lavender, sage and 98 varieties of friendly fauna and was inspired to do something outside of themselves. A new form of art began. Throughout the day, art ideas kept sprouting to the surface, many tangents kept originating from what may have otherwise been a singular, fixed moment in time. The finite hundred of plants became a beginning for an infinite number of impacts,  uniting everyone into a community of agency.