Our rapidly changing climates and expanding populations have challenged the pre-existing structures in place for meeting the demand for food and water. One solution, hydroponic farming systems, allows for accelerated agricultural production within compact urban centers, but these self-enclosed systems separate us from the land. Stitch Field offers an alternative to the plastic-filled warehouses of plants associated with hydroponic systems by using knitted sheep’s wool as substrate and replacing engineered crops with locally occurring plants.
Alice-Marie Archer hand-knits fiber sculptures that are each embedded with seeds, creating patterns suited to the needs of each seed species—whether it grows best in a divot, pocket, or row. For this site-specific installation at the Benton, the artist has chosen seeds of locally occurring California plants with either edible or medicinal properties.
Archer connects new technology through age old techniques with her sculpture. As an aid to her practice, she uses Midjourney AI visualizations to imagine her work in new spaces and forms. In these images her sculptures morph into home-like structures or walls of cascading plants that fit into imagined urban landscape modelling how this work can be implemented in daily life.
Visitors will be able to see, smell, and feel the installation change daily as the seeds germinate, sprout, grow, and decay throughout the course of the exhibition. Archer’s sculptures will eventually be returned to the earth, completing the natural cycle of growth and death, and contributing once again to the local ecosystem.
