Abstract
This study combines participant observation and photovoice documentation to examine the experience of site-specific, nature-based art. Twenty-four participants generated 70 pages of written narrative and 139 photographs during 72 collective hours at the South Carolina Botanical Garden. The sculpture program’s stated goal of producing unique, extra-ordinary experiences for garden visitors is evaluated through analyses of the participants’ observations and photographs. The authors argue that participants’ initial reactions are marked by tensions created when the site-specific, nature-based characteristics of the artwork fail to live up to expectations of orderly arrangement and comprehensible utility. However, the tension generated through the apparent failure to generate immediate comprehension and appreciation is found to be ultimately resolved through contemplative engagement. The unexpected encounter with an unmarked formation, deliberate yet naturalized, offers the viewer an experience beyond the order and utility that generally define our world.
The scientific mind is a feat of evolution. The creative mind emerged from a primitive quest for understanding. (Mia Hanak, Founding Executive Director, Natural World Museum, 2007: 170) Natural space [is] experienced through hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching. By means of the smallest possible interventions, living three-dimensional natural space is re-organized, unlocked and put under tension. (Nils-Udo, nature-based artist, Towards Nature, 2002: 174)
Spread over 300 acres, the 15 nature-based sculptures of the South Carolina Botanical Garden (SCBG) are creative interventions developed with local, natural materials to suit their separate, unique sites. For example, the series of red clay cubes that make up Karen McCoy’s Invisible Operations (1999) are spread inconspicuously amongst the trees bordering a wildflower meadow. Yolanda Gutierrez’s The Devotion of the Sunflower (2003) fills the open space near the SCBG visitors’ center with geometric spirals of arcing platforms, flowers, and herbs. Cast unevenly across the grounds, the SCBG sculptures are especially unique as public artwork due to a complete absence of demarcation. The obligatory artist name, sculpture title, year of production, and construction materials are available only through sparse documentation located in the visitors’ center. Even the garden’s road and trail signage excludes any reference to the artworks. Rather, most sculptures are remotely tucked away along forested walking paths or unidentified clearings, and are therefore discovered by visitors like found objects – unexpected encounters. The moss-covered stone and earth dome of Herb Parker’s Crucible (1995), for example, is built unobtrusively into a trailside knoll. Crucible’s entrance is darkened, and only through curious investigation do passers-by discover the smooth interior floor, spiraling out from a spring-fed pool illuminated by an opening at the structure’s apex. Alfio Bonanno’s Natural Dialogue (1997) rests beside a stream, deep in the garden’s forest. The sculpture, which resembles ancient ceremonial spaces, remotely awaits discovery by visitors – despite the massive cranes necessary to create the megalithic stone formation. Nils-Udo’s Clemson Clay Nest (2005), once a massive wreath of pine logs and bamboo cane nearly 15 feet high, has evolved to become a crater-like bowl, a smooth indentation nearly 50 feet in diameter. Nils-Udo’s ‘intervention’, the ‘living, three-dimensional space’, creates the tension he describes within the experience of its viewers (Nils-Udo, 2002: 174). This article considers how viewers of the SCBG nature-based sculptures experience and resolve such tensions. Through an examination of field notes and photographs, we argue that the common characteristics of the sculptures produce tensions that resolve themselves only through reflective engagement, a process affirming the ‘primitive quest for understanding’ described by Hanak (Natural World Museum, 2007: 170).
The sculptures examined here make up one of the world’s largest and longest-running displays of site-specific, nature-based art (Grande, 2008). The SCBG’s celebrated sculpture program emerged as a result of the garden’s earnest commitment to its motto: ‘Where nature and culture meet.’ As a result of this commitment, the conventional display gardens and horticultural education which define the mission of most botanical gardens are supplemented with a distinct and active Cultural Program. Ernie Denny, the Cultural Program’s founding director, coordinates community gatherings, workshops, and university courses in addition to the widely acclaimed sculpture program. Since its inception in 1995, the SCBG’s sculpture program has worked with artists of national and international prominence to create 15 nature-based, site-specific sculptures. Funding for the program, including a series of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, also maintains and cultivates the changing characteristics of the sculptures. Made exclusively of natural materials, including incorporation of living plant material, the sculptures are subject to decay as well as growth in relationship with their placement in the landscape. Thus, the nature-based label references both the materials incorporated and the setting of the artworks. Similarly, the site-specific label refers not only to the development of an artwork within a particular space, but also the necessity for the viewer to experience the art in that specific setting. Denny echoes Udo as he describes site-specific as referring to ‘sculptures that ‘need to be installed’ and that are reliant on the viewer’s multi-sensory experience to realize the purpose and meaning of the art’ (personal communication, 21 May 2009). The SCBG sculpture program’s philosophy has shaped a set of works that simultaneously fit within as well as creatively reinterpret their natural setting.
Part of a movement variously described as ephemeral, nature-based, eco-art, land art, earth art, landscape art and a host of other terms, the SCBG nature-based sculpture program has gained wide recognition for its exceptional quality. John Beardsley (1999: 1), for example, describes the SCBG artworks as ‘a rich visual, perceptual, and educational experience’. Similarly, John Grande (2008: 115), the most prolific writer on the subject of nature-based art, describes SCBG’s program as the world model for ‘ephemeral sculpture’, noting that ‘in an ephemeral sculpture garden, links are established between human culture and the culture of nature.’ Grande further extols the program’s place in contemporary sculpture collections:
The South Carolina Botanical Garden (SCBG) is one of the largest permanent sites devoted to art in the land in eastern North America. It is a living laboratory of natural and human-built structures, supporting ‘extended ephemeral’ projects. The structures evolve, integrate into, and gradually return to nature. The art is site specific but exists in a general garden framework. SCBG offers a prime example of the ephemeral sculpture garden. (p. 116)
Featured in publications as varied as Smithsonian, Sculpture, Landscape Architecture, Southern Living, Elle (Italian edn), The Daily Telegraph (London), and Public Garden, the SCBG sculpture program is also modestly unobtrusive in its botanical garden setting. In contrast to the botanical garden norm, the SCBG grounds are not wholly cultivated; rather, nearly half of its 300 acres exist as minimally managed, native forest. Placed in various terrains, without explanation, visitors to the garden experience art away from the usual context of gallery or museum space. The nature-base and site-specificity function to blur distinctions between nature and culture, and disrupt the presuppositions attached to public spaces, natural spaces, and artistic expression (Wolfe and Russell, 2010). The unexpected encounter with an unmarked formation, deliberate yet naturalized, offers the SCBG visitor an experience beyond the order and utility that generally define our world.
The Experience of Nature-Based Art
It is the experience of an unexpected encounter that is both the stated objective of the sculpture program as well as its most enigmatic characteristic. For Denny et al. (2009: np), the sculptures create the opportunity for garden visitors to have a ‘non-ordinary experience’. It is the unexpected encounter with the moss-covered mounds of Trudi Entwistle’s Space In Between (2000) or the woven trees and rammed-earth obelisks of Chris Drury’s (2002) Time Capsule that can, in Denny et al.’s (2009) words, ‘take a person out of their normal frame of reference’. Noting that ‘industrial cultures do not have mystics, they have artists,’ Denny et al. explain the sculpture program’s philosophy as experiential: ‘whenever you’re taken out of your normal frame of reference, you have an opportunity for that which we refer to as the sacred to speak, leave a mark, bubble up, whatever you want to call it.’ Similarly, the garden’s commissioned artists identify experience as the central characteristic of SCBG artworks. Alfio Bonanno (1997) wrote of his SCBG sculpture that the ‘key’ was ‘for others who are willing to participate and share this experience … I hope a situation is created for experiencing.’ Further, just as B&B 1 see their Stream Path (1998) as ‘not a lesson but a proposition’, Trudi Entwistle (2000) describes not a viewer but a ‘participant’ who can ‘meditate upon’ the work and its space, and Brian Rust (1996) speaks of how ‘curiosity draws them’ to the art; in the same vein, Yolanda Gutierrez (2003) neatly summarizes the program: ‘The artistic work that we have created in the South Carolina Botanical Garden is intended to invite guests to experience a portion of the landscape.’
In his robust examination of ‘contemporary art in the landscape’, Beardsley (1998: 9–10) argues that, in a world ‘afflicted with a profound ambivalence toward nature’, natural sculptures like those of the SCBG ‘reveal the world to us anew’. Although he questions the potential of artist intervention ‘compared to the magnitude of the problems’ (p. 164) he ultimately concludes that the works of Daugherty, McCoy, and other current nature-based artists provide ‘one of the primary forms of cultural expression’ (p. 201). In addition, he writes:
Every work that engages the landscape underscores the crucial connections between nature and culture and helps to revitalize – and, with any luck, improve – that relationship … [Such works] can help us decode our multiple, often conflicting attitudes toward nature, reviving old myths when appropriate and shaping new paradigms when necessary. (p. 201)
Beardsley’s optimism, however, is predicated not on the deliberate infusion of ecological politics into the artworks, but on the form of art in the landscape. While Grande (2004: 51) defines the program as ‘proactive’, writing that ‘the South Carolina Botanical Garden provides bio-specific prototypes of creativity that … embody an ethic’, most assessments focus on non-specific, experiential qualities. Hammatt (2001: 38), for example, describes the SCBG sculptures as ‘artistic creations that provide garden visitors with experiences beyond that of conventional plants and habitats’, as well as ‘works that can be continually reinterpreted by garden visitors’ (Hammatt, 2000: 16).
In the art community, nature-based artists vary considerably in claims that their work is politically infused (Harper and Moyer, 2008; Tufnell, 2006). The SCBG, however, simply presents the sculptures as ‘anomalies in the landscape’, opportunities for ‘non-ordinary experience’ (Denny et. al., 2009). SCBG participating artist Chris Drury, for example, says that he has ‘nothing to communicate, either consciously or unconsciously; the work simply reflects the moving from moment to moment in the world as it is, and so it is nature itself that communicates’ (quoted in Malpas, 2007: 189). The SCBG’s ‘Artist Commission and Contract’ is even more explicit:
The sculptural design is to intend evoking a sense of curiosity, wonder, and awe of Nature, and is not to intend communicating personal, social or political ‘commentary’. As such, the guest’s experience of the piece/space is allowed to evoke purpose and meaning (SCBG, 2003, Artist’s Design and Installation Responsibilities no. 6).
The question that drove this study then was not of artistic politics or meaning, but of the experience of the viewer: what is the experience of nature-based sculpture? Or, in Denny’s phrasing, what is it that ‘bubbles up?’ Comprehending participants’ experiences of the SCBG’s nature-based sculpture program is the central purpose of this project. The program’s own focus on generating unique experiences, as well as the characteristics of the nature-based, site-specific works, calls for a focus on viewers’ reactions to the sculptures. Therefore, in this article, we move toward understanding how visitors go about experiencing the nature-based sculpture program at the SCBG. In the following section, we discuss the research methods employed in this project. We then present the visual and written observations of the participants’ experiences, and conclude the article by highlighting the implications of our findings for nature-based artists, its exhibitors and visual communication.
Documenting and Analyzing Participant Experience
The visual essence of sculpture, combined with the experiential basis of our research question, required an approach that combined visual and participatory methods. Thus, in the following section, we proceed with a brief discussion of the process we used to illuminate the experience of viewing SCBG sculptures. An introduction to the study’s participants is followed by an outline of the two methods – participant observation and photovoice – that informed our own process. Prior to presenting the data and our interpretations, we also discuss our analytic procedures.
Participants
This study stems from collaboration between Clemson University and the SCBG, located adjacent to Clemson University’s campus. In spring 2008, 44 students participated in a broad service-learning research project for the SCBG. Students enrolled in multiple upper-division Communication Studies courses self-selected into one of four research teams: website analysis, video analysis, survey production, and visual analysis. Twenty-four of the 44 students chose to participate as part of the visual analysis team and their efforts, and data, form the basis of this article. Two training sessions were completed for the students participating in this portion of the collaborative project. These sessions provided background on the SCBG, a discussion of the methodologies, and training for recording their observations. The participants, who were exclusively Communication Studies majors or minors, were not provided with information detailing the sculpture program’s philosophy or any training in art interpretation.
Visual ethnography
Visual ethnography (Pink, 2004, 2007) most broadly captures the spirit embedded in this project’s ethos. Pink (2004: 3) notes that ethnographic research has generated a number of fruitful twists that usefully focus on the visual: ‘Reflexivity, collaboration, new approaches to ethics and new technologies … in visual ethnography texts … invite new ways of working with people, words and images with an emphasis on the processes of research and representation’. Thus, she argues (Pink, 2007: 6), ‘Visual images, objects, and descriptions should be incorporated when it is appropriate, opportune or enlightening to do so.’ Given the visual basis of the objects under study, incorporation of visual data seemed not only appropriate, but also faithful to the experiences of the participants. A visual experience calls for visual research. Our concern was to center the visual results in a hybrid approach of participant observation and photovoice. The resulting collection of data provided us not only with written expressions of our participants’ visual experiences but also with their own visual expressions.
Participant observation
Participant observation is a foundational method for any type of understanding focusing on lived experiences and practices and was thus an obvious choice given the experiential focus of this project. As this project is guided by ethnographic principles, we felt it necessary to compel students, and ourselves, to focus on the particulars of the social setting in question (Emerson et al., 1995; Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Lindlof and Taylor, 2002; Lofland and Lofland, 1995). In the best sense, participant observation is research by doing. By ‘looking and listening, watching and asking’, participant observers learn the setting in which they are entrenched (Lofland and Lofland, 1995: 19). Participant observation functions as a practical methodology because its use generates descriptions of ‘the here and now of everyday life’ (Jorgensen, 1989: 15). In other words, participant observation gives us a glimpse into how people experience the world, in this case, the nature-based sculptures at the SCBG. In this project, the authors stake out a collaborative stance with the participants of this project. Our students, informed by our lessons, yet destined to explore the world on their own, generate the data for this study and contribute to the analyses.
Student participants were required to spend a minimum of three hours exploring the artistic components of the SCBG specifically, and the experience of the garden, generally. They recorded field notes of their experiences in the garden, but were not required to write a minimum amount. Students were encouraged to capture their thoughts, emotions, reflections and criticisms of and about the garden and the art while in the field and after leaving the field. The 24 participants generated a total of 70 pages of single-spaced field notes from nearly 72 collective hours in the field. These written observations were supplemented with photographic documentation employing a variation of what is often referred to as ‘photovoice’.
Photovoice
A practice grounded in community action through visual representation, photovoice has traditionally called for researchers to empower participants to generate images about their world (Wang, 2003; Wang and Burris, 1997). Photovoice participants are encouraged to take photographs of lived experiences that the researcher is not (or could not be) aware of. For this project, however, students were given a general framework in which they should operate (i.e. take pictures related to the environmental art at the SCBG and the general experience of the SCBG). Thus, the participatory approach and the photovoice approach were combined in a way that acted interdependently, with the photographic documentation prescribed to the subject of participation and the participatory data impacted by the focus on visual representation.
Concurrent with taking field notes, each participant was required to take a minimum of six pictures of the garden art sculptures at the SCBG. They were also instructed to remain on the lookout for interesting objects, events, places and people that could represent their experience of the SCBG generally, and nature-based sculpture, specifically. Students were required to use a digital camera to capture their photographs, and cameras were made available to those who needed them. Twenty-four students took a total of 139 photographs related to the SCBG and the garden art project. Added to the written observations, we found this hybridity of focused participation and photographic documentation allowed for a rich collaboration between the participants and researchers.
Analytic procedures
In order to fulfill the collaborative ethos of this project, the analysis of the generated field notes and images occurs on two levels. On the first level, the notes and images generated by participants in the project contribute equally in the analysis of the SCBG sculptures. The authors join their voices with the experiences of the students who walked the woods and explored the garden. In traditional qualitative research, the data resulting from a study function as a representation of the world rather than a reflection on that representation. In this project, it is our aim to use the participants’ data to reflect on nature-based art, and not merely represent it. On another level, the notes and images generated by the participants are texts upon which we apply a critical lens to elucidate deeper meaning about people’s experiences with nature-based sculpture. In the remainder of this article, we aim to include the voices and images of the participants and make a critique of them in the hopes of providing insight about the function and experience of nature-based sculpture.
The results from the data collected for this project are presented as two principal themes. First, participants’ initial reactions to the artworks were expressed largely through a set of commonly experienced tensions. These reactions are organized in the next section by taking a closer look at the participants’ expectations of orderly arrangement and comprehensible utility, as well as the subsequent tensions roused when experiences fail to meet expectations. The second principal theme discusses how the participants’ field notes and photographs illuminate a process of engagement where these tensions are resolved.
Exploring the SCBG: Immediate Reactions
As discussed earlier, the overarching philosophic motivation of the SCBG sculpture program is positioned by the coordinators and artists as an opportunity for ‘experiencing’, for visitors to be ‘taken out of their normal frame’, and to ‘evoke a sense of curiosity, wonder, and awe of Nature’ (Denny et al., 2009). Vastly different from walking through the conventionally ordered space of an art museum, the SCBG strives to generate a ‘non-ordinary experience’ for its visitors vis-à-vis the nature-based sculpture program. The SCBG also contrasts itself to, in Denny’s words, ‘plop art’ garden exhibits which commonly place traditional sculptures in a formalized garden setting (e.g. DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA; Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY; and Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, SC). Denny et al. note that:
Sculpture parks are like theme parks. [The SCBG] is an outdoor experience. It’s a trail system … [the sculptures are] an anomaly in the landscape, asking people to have some repair and repose in the garden. The artists liked the idea because it set their unique creation off in a unique area that was not going to be piggybacked on some other artistic experience.
The unsystematic location of the sculptures, and their natural infusion and incorporation into the landscape present garden visitors with artifacts that are at once deeply contextual and out of the ordinary. As the participants of this study set out, documentations reveal a process of tense encounter and engaged discovery.
Although no specific instructions for field notes were given, all the participants followed the same general model for written documentation. First, they described the process of locating the artwork; second, they offered a general, initial reaction; third, they provided a physical description, often including shape, materials, and color; and, finally, they offered an interpretation of the sculpture’s meaning. The following is a typical narrative:
The first sculpture I came to find was that of the Crucible. It was around 5:00 in the evening, yet it seemed much earlier in the day because of the hot sun blazing and the quiet sounds of the breeze blowing through the trees. I came across this sculpture from the backside, so the first thing I noticed was the way in which the bricks were lined and stacked upon each other. They were stacked symmetrically, but the bricks were all different shapes and sizes, so it appeared as though someone tried to piece them together so that they would fit, like a puzzle. I then traveled down the hard stone steps around to the front of the Crucible. As soon as I viewed it from this angle, I thought of it as a small cave in the middle of the forest someone could use for meditation. Inside, the water pit at the bottom seemed as though it should have been a fire pit, where the smoke would raise through the hole at the top of the sculpture – a perfect place to relax in and roast marshmallows with family or friends. It is definitely a site to see and enjoy.
The field notes provided us with two means of approaching the data. First, because there was such uniformity in the elements of the narrative, we could draw generalizations about their experience in whole. Second, since the notes are narrative in structure, we can consider how the participants were specifically experiencing the artworks. Each of these approaches is significantly enhanced by incorporating the images that participants chose to include with their narratives. Although the photographs were taken and selected by the participants, in many cases, properties of the images such as angle, framing, and distance provided substantive depth to their voices.
Surprisingly, the initial reactions to the SCBG nature-based sculptures were fairly consistent in that the sculptures, and the search for them, created tensions and anxieties. These tensions were subsequently expressed in photographs and field notes as confusion and irritation. Participant documentation shows that viewer expectations conflicted with the central characteristics of the sculpture program – site-specific and nature-based.
Order and experience
One area of tension expressed by participants arose as expectations for order conflicted with the irregularity of site-specific art. SCBG sculptures are neither labeled nor provide direction through trial signage. Explained as an extension of the commitment to site-specific work, program literature advocates a ‘pioneering spirit’ to locating the scattered sculptures, stating:
While it may be easier to find the pieces if they were clearly marked, the sculpture program does not intend to present works in a traditional ‘quick find’ gallery fashion. The majority of participating artists and program administrators agree that the sculptures should be discovered, ‘happened upon,’ to accentuate their presentation in a natural setting. (South Carolina Botanical Garden, 2007)
Many participants commented on the lack of signage and labels for identifying and naming the sculptures in the garden. Experiencing the sculpture program in the garden proved to be markedly different from participants’ presuppositions of artistic display – where artifact titles, artists, medium, and canvas are clearly presented and neatly organized in museum or gallery space. In the most extreme cases, some participants were unable to locate or discern some of the sculptures at all. One student returned to his notes and photographs to discover that what he had perceived as Natural Dialogue was actually something altogether different. Labeling his photograph ‘Outdoor Christmas Tree’ (Figure 1), he wrote:
Turns out this isn’t Natural Dialogue at all … and when I figured out it wasn’t Natural Dialogue, I was disappointed. Again a sign would have been VERY helpful, especially since what I thought I was seeing wasn’t what I was seeing at all!
Participant labeled: ‘Outdoor Christmas Tree’.
Another participant commented similarly,
I wasn’t sure what to expect because the map was weak and I soon found out nothing was labeled. To my dismay, I soon began to appreciate the idea of nothing but plants having labels, after all, it is the South Carolina Botanical Garden.
Signage in the garden, the labeling of the sculptures, and thus, the prescripting of subjective experiences was a central tension for these participants. In addition to an image of a small, underdeveloped plant and its label (Figure 2), a participant wrote:
I took this picture because it best conveys the suggestion that the Botanical Gardens should label its nature-based sculptures. There are labels on everything else, including this small plant; that may look insignificant to some, but there are not any types of labels on any of the sculptures. Simply having the names on the sculptures would still leave a lot of room for the visitors of the Botanical Gardens to create their own interpretations of what the sculptures mean to them (which is clear from the field notes that I have gathered).
Photograph places the label at center, obscuring the plant it names.
This participant, like many, clearly desires labels and names for the sculptures in the garden. Although subjects note that labels would ‘leave a lot of room … to create their own interpretations’, the notion embedded in these comments is the desire for guidance toward a ‘true’ interpretation of the art. The image of an ‘insignificant’ plant tellingly places the label at the center, obscuring the plant itself.
Similarly, the map of the SCBG and its features was almost universally maligned by the participants. Consider this excerpt from a participant’s field notes:
On my way, I saw the first and only map of the gardens. Unfortunately, it was equally inexact as the one already in my hand lacking a proper identification of trails and sculptures.
Several of the sculptures were specifically difficult for participants to locate, leading to expressions of anger and disappointment. The following excerpts were typical:
The actual location of Time Capsule did not seem to be the same location on the map … I became rather frustrated at this point and wished we had been given a clearer, larger, and more detailed map.
and:
Unfortunately, we had a hard time finding this sculpture … After looking at the map and placing ourselves in the location we thought the sculpture should be, we were slightly confused because we still could not find the sculpture.
Although the SCBG encourages garden visitors to ‘walk outside’, to use their ‘pioneering spirit’ to discover and locate the sculptures, participants clearly experienced tension. Emphatic demands for labels, signs and maps expressed the dissonance between the experience participants expected and the experience they encountered. The semi-directed format of the study likely heightened participants’ anxieties regarding location and identification of the sculptures. However, statements of this nature were prevalent even in narratives that indicated ease of location. In addition, the insistence on labels, signs, and directives are a common theme for the public comments received by the sculpture program (Denny et al, 2009). 2 A desire for the conventional museum experience, or the ‘plop art’ variation for outdoor spaces, seems to make an impression on SCBG visitors.
Utility and experience
While general impressions focused on the tension created by unanticipated disorder, a second tension is evident in participants’ initial reaction to the perceived utility of individual sculptures. Participants persistently sought to make sense of the sculptures they encountered. Meaning, for them, was as crucial to document as the objects themselves. Common elements of the written responses substantiate this point. Certainly, we were not surprised that the participants sought to understand the meaning of the sculptures; there is little in the world people will not approach and desire to know its meaning, including public art (Gallagher and LaWare, 2007). Rather, what intrigued us was the clearly evident tension between expectations of utility and the abstraction of nature-based art, a tension that appeared as soon as participants encountered each sculpture. Utility, as we use it in this article, refers to everyday perceptions of an object’s useful function. Thus, participants’ identification of a sculpture’s utility would answer the question, ‘what is it for?’ or ‘what does it do?’ This type of utility is centered on physicality, suggesting a blindness to other forms of usefulness, such as aesthetic pleasure or mental engagement.
The most obvious trend across the notes emerged from statements of affinity and dislike. Participants’ initial reactions were intractably and often emotionally tied to the perceived function of each sculpture. Where a clear utility could be perceived, field notes consistently reported an initial affinity for the artwork. For example, there was widespread agreement among participants that Earthen Bridge was an appealing sculpture. The appeal, however, was clearly tied to its obvious function as a bridge. Typical of this sentiment was the comment that Earthen Bridge ‘was one of my favorite sculptures. I enjoyed the fact that the sculpture actually served a purpose. My first impression of the bridge was positive.’ Similarly, photographs of Earthen Bridge, many of which appear nearly identical, tended to favor angles that highlighted the bridge’s connection to the nearby stairs or pathway (Figures 3 and 4). Although the bridge’s most distinct artistic feature is the geologic impression given by its profile view, none of the participant photographs highlight this perspective.
Participant labeled: ‘Earthen Bridge’.
Participant labeled: ‘Earthen Bridge’.
While Earthen Bridge was predominantly well received, initial reactions to most sculptures depended on each participant’s attempt to determine utility. One participant remarked appreciatively that the size and visibility of Devotion of the Sunflower made it useful as a navigational landmark throughout the gardens, while another found that because it accents the Welcome Center, the sculpture was ‘appropriate’ as a ‘welcoming statement for the entire Botanical Gardens’. These reactions run counter to those who did not perceive utility in the size and placement, but, rather, believed Devotion to be ‘lackluster’ as ‘its close proximity to the house seemed to take away both the mystery and naturalness of the piece.’
When no function could be identified, expressions of anger and frustrated dismissal were frequent, with several participants going so far as to question the validity of the pieces as art or sculpture. A number of descriptions of Devotion reasoned that since they ‘did not understand why it was identified as a sculpture’, they ‘felt confused and disappointed’. In fact, the level of initial displeasure commonly showed a direct relationship to the amount of difficulty they reported in determining a function. Many echoed sentiments like: ‘This was one of my least favorite sculptures. I could see very little rhyme or reason to its parts.’ These narratives variously described different sculptures as ‘a bunch of rocks scattered about’, ‘boring’, ‘something a third grader could make’, or ‘not very exciting’.
Engaging with the Sculptures: The Experience of Resolving Tension
The initial impressions of the participants certainly call into question the stated goal of the SCBG sculpture program to produce meaningful experiences in garden visitors. Engagement with the artworks is complicated by the participants’ affinity for clarity, utility, and definition. The nature-base of the sculptures seems to confound the viewers, while the abstraction of site-specificity challenged their expectations of art. The results represent a disconnect between the desired outcomes of the SCBG and the reported experiences of garden visitors. However, in this section, we argue that a deeper look into the words and images of the participants reveals that it is precisely this disconnect that leads to the kinds of ‘non-ordinary experiences’ sought by the program. In short, the apparent failure to generate immediate comprehension and appreciation produces a tension that is ultimately resolved through deeper, contemplative engagement.
The focus on function over form in participants’ initial reactions provides a general narrative that utilitarian artwork is the most appealing. However, these first impressions did not necessarily reverberate through participants’ complete experiences. When utility was obscure, the participant’s need to interpret the sculpture’s meaning necessitated an alternative sense-making lens. In this case, the most readily available alternative was personal engagement with the sculpture. In addition, the more difficulty participants had in identifying a purpose for the sculpture, the more detailed and engaged their complete experience turned out to be. Participants’ shift of focus from utility to engagement ultimately led to more enriching experiences.
Descriptions of Sittin’ Pretty (Dougherty, 1996) typified the process of initial tension shifting to engaged experience. Several participants noted that, on initial contact with the inexplicable ‘group of intertwined trees and vines’, they were ‘disappointed,’ ‘surprised,’ or ‘not very impressed with the sculpture’. The same participants, however, go on to describe how they engaged with the artwork to seek out further interpretation. One of several initially ‘disappointed’ participants wrote:
As I continued to take many pictures from many different angles, I began to see the beauty … Spring was approaching and the two trees in the middle were beginning to bloom, which made me realize that this would soon be a beautiful structure even though it was not exactly what we expected to see.
Another, initially ‘surprised’, participant wrote:
It took me a couple of minutes to realize how fascinating Sittin’ Pretty really is … This group of trees, which includes an inner and outer connected circle, is very unique. I really like the woven look of the branches that unites them … This figure represents unity to me. It reminds me of some sort of small devoted group who are spiritually very close to one another. The interlocking branches almost appear as people putting their arms around each other.
Similarly, a participant who was, at first, ‘not very impressed’ spent more time experiencing the artwork and ‘started to see the beauty, uniqueness, and meaning’, interpreting that:
The shorter trees are interconnected and depend on one another for support and strength to support the taller trees. Since it was still breezy outside, the taller trees swayed from side to side in the wind, but the shorter trees remained grounded and never moved. Their solid state in the ground represents their role as protectors.
Proximity and engagement
While these comments represent the bulk of participant experiences, reflection and engagement were not always a given outcome. Some participants did not further engage sculptures they deemed uninteresting. Two participants’ narratives for Sittin’ Pretty, for example, conclude only that they were ‘incredibly disappointed’ or left feeling ‘confusion and dissatisfaction with the sculpture’. Neither of these participants appears to have spent any time contemplating the sculpture, to the extent that one provides no physical description whatsoever, while the other took a photo from across a roadway they don’t seem to have crossed. In fact, the photographs provided with these narratives are strikingly similar (Figures 5 and 6). Although each picture is taken from opposing viewpoints, they are both taken at an equally considerable distance. The photographs suggest that it is this distance from the sculptures that results in a lack of engagement. Indeed, atypical narratives like these occurred only in reference to sculptures which could be seen and photographed from a significant distance.
Photograph of Sittin’ Pretty taken from across a roadway.
Participant labeled: ‘Sittin’ Pretty’.
The implication that proximity is tied to engagement is one made explicit by the words and images of other participants. One narrative, for example, first describes being ‘underwhelmed’ by Sittin’ Pretty, writing that ‘For me it was nothing more than a circle of trees.’ The accompanying photograph is nearly identical in its framing and distance to the ones described earlier. However, this narrative continues:
In taking a closer look and admittedly a bit of time pondering its purpose, I came to take note of its detail. As this close-up image of one of the arches conveys [Figure 7], the sculpture is at once chaos and order, art and nature … It seems that this piece can only be appreciated after seeing the complexity that composes the outwardly simplistic whole.
Participant labeled: ‘Sittin’ Pretty Arch’.
Another participant similarly described the intricacy of Sittin’ Pretty, detailing patterns of branch and root growth. The description is virtually opposite to the passing dismissal of those who viewed the artwork only from a distance. The image provided, taken from inside the ‘circle of trees’, is just as stark in its contrast (Figure 8).
A photograph taken from inside Sittin’ Pretty.
Participant narratives repeatedly expressed the value of closeness in their experiences. Of Chameleon Meadow (Dede and Inoue, 2001), one narrative begins ‘My first impression of the Chameleon Meadow is that it was boring’ but concludes ‘you need to get up close and into it to see the detail.’ As evidence, the participant included a photograph that he or she believed was a ‘representation of the feeling I got when I was there’ (Figure 9).
Participant labeled: ‘Chameleon Meadow’.
Participants’ photographs show with remarkable clarity how the process of engagement provided insights. In cases where utility was offered as the primary meaning of a sculpture, the corresponding photographs were consistently stale documentations. Wide angles framing the entirety of a sculpture were often taken from identical viewing positions across several participants. However, narratives where utility was replaced or supplemented with personal reflection were dependably accompanied by images that highlighted shape, texture, lighting, relationships, contrast, and other elements of the artwork. One participant expressed his or her personal experience with Chameleon Meadow by offering a set of four photographs rather than the single image required by the guidelines. Noting, ‘I obviously took quite a liking to this sculpture’, the narrative includes discussion of childhood memories, emotional lifts and falls, whales, teepees, secret doors, prisons, and shadows. The photographs included imagery meant to elaborate on these ideas (Figures 10 and 11). Variations in the extent of engagement, it should be noted, were not participant dependent. In other words, it was not the case that some participants reflected more and produced more engaged photographs than others; rather, participants varied their written and photographic engagement across sculptures depending on their perception of utility.
Participant labeled: ‘Chameleon Meadow, Inside the Whale’s Belly’.
Participant labeled: ‘Chameleon Meadow – Like a Prison Door’.
When the participants sought meaning outside the frame of utility, their engagements rarely left them with simple, predictable, or banal reflections. One interpretation of Spaces In-Between generated this elaborate visual analogy:
The rocks reminded me of lily pads in a pond. Just as lily pads always seem to be floating gently and freely across a pond, the rocks in this sculpture appear as if they are floating across the earth’s surface. The leaves surrounding the rocks represent the water in the pond.
Another interpretation of the same sculpture considered that it:
… could be from the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The mounds popping up from the ground almost look like all of the candy that is seen growing in the movie. It is somewhat odd that something that is so natural such as this sculpture could remind me of something so unnatural such as a chocolate factory. However, it is also amusing what these sculptures somehow sometimes remind me of!
One participant’s experience with Time Capsule led to a series of reflections, concluding that:
When people have more than one pet, like the pet mice my roommate has, the two pets are communicating in their own distinct way. As a child I thought while watching Disney movies like Bambi about the way that nature actually communicates. This sculpture is a display of the communication of nature.
Childhood memories were only one of several recurring themes in the reflections participants provided. One particularly prevalent theme was that of secrecy and hiding. Participants reported feeling ‘secluded, like I was hiding and no one could see me’, or a ‘sense of mystery’. More often, the sculptures were described through secrets, referencing a variety of the sculptures as ‘a secret door’, ‘a doorway to a secret path’, ‘a secretive location’, ‘an escape’, ‘secret and hidden’, ‘a secret gateway’, and, on two separate occasions, reminding them of the film The Secret Garden.
What did not occur, however, was consistency in the description of each individual sculpture. For example, while some participants connected Natural Dialogue to its monolithic precursor Stonehenge, others saw Roman architecture as ‘a mote surrounding a castle’, ‘a stadium’ or ‘a necklace’. Similarly, Crucible was imagined as ‘volcano’, ‘cave’, ‘secret getaway or fortress’ and ‘the shell of a snail’ in just one participant’s narrative. Other sculptures were ‘beehives’, ‘anthills’, ‘freshly dug graves’, ‘Dalmatian’, ‘Chinese’, ‘omniscient’, and ‘the face of an elderly man … [with] hands that are placed together as if in a meditative state’ (Figure 12).
Photograph of Natural Dialogue depicting an old man meditating.
The inconsistency, even eccentricity of the interpretations ultimately supports the SCBG program’s desire to stimulate individual experiences. Even when participants faulted the sculptures for lack of transparent utility, many of their narratives concluded that their experience with the sculpture was, in the end, ‘the point’. For example, although the narrative of one participant began by declaring ‘extreme disappointment’ with Spaces In Between, poignant reflections on ‘the way in which we go through life’ are followed by the revelation that:
Even if this was not the intent of the artist, this is the great aspect of art; it allows you to be subjective!
Another comment summarized the general experience expressed by many participants:
I understood these sculptures to be impossible to immediately comprehend meaning from. Upon reflection, I understand that this may be the very aim of the botanical garden art pieces.
Conclusion
So what does ‘bubble up?’ The focused participation and photographic documentation discussed in this article suggest that the nature-based, site-specific sculptures of the SCBG are experienced as a tense, yet engaged interaction between expectations for order and utility and unexpected encounters with enigmatic artworks. Participant experiences of the garden indicate that the common characteristics of the SCBG sculptures do advance the program’s philosophy of generating meaningful, out of the ordinary experiences. Field notes and photographs usually portray the art as difficult to grasp, particularly without descriptive labeling or clear utilitarian value. These properties create dissonance and struggle for the participants. However, the tensions between expectations and encounter also most often produced personal engagement based on an inner drive for understanding. In addition, nearly all the participants expressed appreciation for most of the individual sculptures as well as the experience of the garden as a whole.
The process of shifting from tension to engagement, where garden visitors frequently express frustration, confusion, or anger before they begin to reflect upon the artworks is certainly more complicated than the one presented by the SCBG, the artists, or previous analyses of the program. 3 Perhaps the most intriguing notion of this study is that the site-specific, nature-based characteristics underpinning the sculptures are the source of both struggle and engagement, disdain and appreciation. Because the art is not labeled, because one must trek through the woods to locate the sculpture, and because the meaning of the artwork is not readily apparent, the garden visitors are confronted with enigmatic, out-of-place objects that require contemplation.
We believe the experiences of participants echo the overall philosophy of the SCBG sculpture project and the artists: to produce extra-ordinary experience. Additionally, the wide variance within the interpretations of the sculptures supports the SCBG’s claim that the artworks are not explicitly motivated by environmental politics. However, it is important to point out that the act of engagement with nature-based artwork functions as an implicit environmental act. Public art, as stated by Gallagher and LaWare (2007: 163), ‘invites viewers to make a judgment’. Moreover, due to the non-political, abstract nature of the artwork, and because the participants had to engage with the artwork to generate meaning, the rhetorical function of the nature-based sculptures operates more powerfully than if the participants were provided with a list of artists, artworks, titles, meanings, and political purposes. The need to determine for themselves notions of natural integration, harmony, and other interpretations was the basis for the depth of experiences expressed in the narratives and photographs.
Finally, this study moves towards understanding the participant experiences of the artistic setting via the image and word. Rather than asking questions relating to program philosophy, artistic intent or viewer reception, we encouraged participants to document their experiences. This project helps us to understand experience via the visual. That is, how do people visually engage with the setting and the artwork? Based on the documentation produced by participant experiences, we believe that the philosophy and execution of the nature-based sculpture project at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens invite engagement, reflection, and thought about ‘where nature and culture meet’ and encourage participants to reflect on art, nature, themselves, and the world.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Theo van Leeuwen, the anonymous reviewers, Ernie Denny, Dr Shannon Holland and Sara Comer who all contributed to the development of this article. Additional information about the South Carolina Botanical Garden Sculpture Program can be accessed at <
>. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 2009 Conference on Communication and Environment.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.