Abstract
Abstract. Boundary|Time|Surface was an ephemeral, site-specific sculpture created to draw attention to the construction of social, political, scientific, and aesthetic boundaries that divide the Earth; one such practice is the scientific subdivision of geologic time. The sculpture comprised a 150 m fence along the international stratotype separating Ordovician from Cambrian strata in Gros Morne National Park, Canada. The fence was constructed by hand within 1 d, on a falling tide, from materials found on site, with minimal environmental impact. During the following tidal cycles, it was dismantled by wave and tide action. This cycle of construction and destruction was documented with time-lapse photography and video and brought to the public through exhibitions, public talks, and a book. Exhibitions derived from the documentation of ephemeral works function as translations of the original experience. In this case, they provided opportunities for public interaction with media that served both as aesthetic objects and as sources of information about the site's geological and sociopolitical history. We assess the role of the installation, and its documentation, in drawing public attention to boundaries, and examine responses including attendance records and written visitor comments as indications of the viewers' engagement with the concepts presented. Of several thousand visitors to exhibitions, 418 written comments reflected the viewers' engagement with both the location and the underlying concepts. Both the original installation and the subsequent work allowed audiences to explore human understanding and acquisition of knowledge about the Earth and how world-views inform the process of scientific inquiry.
Highlights
Geologists and artists have taken different approaches to documenting features of the Earth and have communicated these approaches to largely different segments of the population
It is situated at Green Point in Gros Morne National Park, a location that receives several thousand visitors annually; despite the site’s popularity, visitors struggle to grasp its geological significance
The installation was documented in a time-lapse photographic sequence, video, and individual still photographs over the course of the construction day from before the beginning of construction until last daylight at ∼ 21:00 local time (LT)
Summary
Geologists and artists have taken different approaches to documenting features of the Earth and have communicated these approaches to largely different segments of the population. Goldsworthy has created a number of works that echo the shape of meandering rivers; these have been carved out of sediment or snow or drawn on a range of surfaces with water (Goldsworthy, 2000) Artistic creations such as these help to bring awareness of the phenomena studied by Earth scientists to an audience that would not otherwise undertake formal training in geology or related subjects and introduce metaphorical and symbolic ways of thinking about the Earth that are different from those employed by scientists and science students. Boundary|Time|Surface was created, drawing on the UK land art tradition, as an intervention within a specific landscape to address these ideas Undertaking this project itself represented a challenging of disciplinary boundaries and discipline-specific modes of thinking. These included a series of exhibitions, public talks, and a limited-edition artist book
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