Defiant Gardens is an ongoing project working with artists, landscape historians, landscape architects, writers, curators and city planners to develop public art projects that inspire the community.
Winter Wonderland: A Defiant Garden by Stevie Famulari, with other juried artists
(Unfortunately, this event has been cancelled due to a lack of snow. Click for details.)
Ice Festival on Friday, February 3, just outside the Memorial Student Union at North Dakota State University. You’ll see giant snow sculptures built by local teams-and one international team-that go far beyond the typical snowman or snow fort. The eight snow sculptures will create a magical Winter Wonderland, lit by luminarias for the Fire and Ice Festival on Friday, February 3, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. Grab a cup of hot cider or cocoa, enjoy a bonfire, and marvel at these glowing, large-scale creations.
Winter Wonderland is Stevie Famulari’s proposal in the Museum’s ongoing public art series, Defiant Gardens for Fargo-Moorhead. A multisensory artist and assistant professor of landscape architecture at NDSU, Famulari decided to create a participatory art project that would defy the isolation of winter and give our community a reason to get together outside around art and fun. Having created snow sculptures for Winnipeg’s Festival du Voyageurs, Famulari developed Winter Wonderland as a snow sculpture competition, working in collaboration with Esther Hockett at the Memorial Union Gallery at NDSU.
A jury selected eight project proposals from the 16 entries. The judges were NDSU professors David Swenson (art) and Regin Schwaen (architecture), PAM director Colleen Sheehy, and two snow sculpture veterans from Winnipeg, Gary Tessier and Madeleine Vrignon. The project proposals will be on display at the Museum January 23 – February 5.
Proposals were judged on originality, form, context, spatial dimensions, use of medium of snow, and feasibility of construction. First place was awarded to the team of Darius Montazemi, Kelsi Mueller, and Nathan Stottler for Tradition Fails; second place goes to Drew Holmgren, Collin Johnson, and Tali Johnson for Lucent Gale.
Co-sponsored by Plains Art Museum
Defiant Garden for the Moorhead Power Plant
On September 28, 2010, the Brooklyn-based artist duo of Rob Fischer and Kevin Johnson presented their proposal for the Defiant Garden for the Moorhead Power Plant to community groups and city officials in Moorhead. Their design utilizes the remnants of old buildings and other structures on the site to create flower beds and sculpture displays. The artists propose that obsolete machinery taken from the interior of the decommissioned plant be presented on plinths, like modern sculptures, to retain references to the history of the site. Native plants would fill the garden beds. Trees would be added, and trellises made from metal work ladders in the plant would be covered with Virginia creeper.
The artists presented their design for comments and discussion to staff and board of Moorhead Public Service (MPS), which operates the plant. They also presented to the Moorhead City Council and held two community meetings. Responses to their design ideas were positive, as people would like the site to be available to the public. Their power plant garden would create a green space linked to Woodlawn Park along the Red River. In thanking the artists for their ideas to re-envision the area, Ken Norman, president of the MPS Board said, “you see art where others see rubble.” A grant from the Lake Region Arts Council with contributions from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota state legislature supports the planning phase of this project.
Wintergarden Fern Grotto for Fargo
Internationally renowned artist Mark Dion visited Plains Art Museum and North Dakota State University for two days in November to develop his Defiant Garden idea of building a small greenhouse filled with ferns and other plants. He proposes that the lush, sensuous interior of the greenhouse would defy the hardships of our winters, when our sensory stimulation becomes limited. Dion gave a lecture on his many major sculptural projects and buildings to artists, city planners, and faculty and students from the NDSU Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, the NDSU Department of Visual Arts, and from the Minnesota State University Moorhead Department of Art and Design. His project will involve NDSU faculty and students from many disciplines in developing the ideas for and building the greenhouse. Dion and Plains Art Museum Director Colleen Sheehy held several meetings with faculty and students and toured downtown Fargo with Bob Stein, a city planner, to locate possible greenhouse sites. A seminar this spring semester at NDSU will further develop the design ideas.
