Iviva Olenick's exhibition Plant(n)ation: Brooklyn As Farm opens at the Invisible Dog Art Center (51 Bergen St, Brooklyn, NY) Saturday, March 9, 6–8pm.
Plant(n)ation, supported by a Brooklyn Arts Fund (DCLA) grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC) via the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, begins with two textile simulations of a garden installed on the exterior of the Invisible Dog Art Center. Iviva will replace the textile banners with a hanging, vertical farm in May, with native and nonnative plants, including ones representing Brooklynites' home countries, states and cities.
Iviva elaborates: "I will sow seeds most likely to thrive in Brooklyn, including native and nonnative textile, food and decorative crops. In summer and fall, I'll host several public harvesting events.
As anti-immigrant policies continue to wreak chaos and trauma, I designed this project to honor the contributions of Native Americans to the land we call Brooklyn, and the journeys so many of us have taken and continue to take to make Brooklyn our home, with plants a metaphor for survival in the most unlikely times and places. As adult life repeatedly shows me, survival is precarious, not assured."