Unland—Exposure Project Proposal:
Four-Stage Proposal General Description:
Create a landscape de-photo using a hand-cut negative in the shape of a tree; form an image of a tree on meadow grass by blocking photosynthesis. The negative-space landscape around the tree image is "exposed" to sunlight and will grow uninhibited, turning lush and green and thereby forming a contrasting exterior oasis of greenery. The positive-tree form (negative stencil) will block sunlight, inhibit vegetation, and ultimately form an image via vegetation decay in the shape of the tree. After the stencil is removed, the dried and brown grasses will appear due to a contrast of colors and textures in the landscape, appearing like a burned tree shadow—visible because of the contrast of "exposures" and the comparison of opposing "views." Finally, after the covering is removed and the grounds re-exposed to sunlight, re-vegetation will occur, and the shape of the tree will eventually fade into the regenerated greenery.
Stage 1 — Stencil Fabrication (Seed of Paradise)
Cut four pieces of landscaping fabric — each 24 feet by 3 feet — to form the shape of an Oak tree. At the lower center of the upside-down image, in the tree design's canopy, cut out the word "UNLAND."
Stage 2 — Stencil Installation (Paradise Lost)
Lay the composite stencil over a grassy meadow so that the base of the tree trunk abuts the edge of the woods' treeline, which will block all light from the vegetation it covers. Hammer landscape fabric staples at regular intervals -- every 12 inches -- to ensure the fabric is secured to the ground. The de-photo process begins, arresting the grass' growth and ultimately killing the grass — a 6-week process to form the tree image. Vegetation will be able to grow through this word, "UNLAND."
Stage 3 — Stencil Removal (Paradise Threshold)
Remove the stencil after 6 weeks. The unexposed grass/dead grass reveals the image of the Oak tree in the shape of the browned grass. The process of regeneration begins.
Stage 4 — Regeneration (Paradise Regained)
Leaving the grasses to regenerate, natural processes will restore the "shaped" grasses over the next weeks and months. By the following spring, it will not be possible to find the Oak shadow or the word "UNLAND."
De-Exposed Concept:
Beals Preserve is an example of a new sense of the term "unland"; Unland: the abolition of the designation of land as ownable; no one can own land; land for all; deacquired land. Southboro is at the heart of the birth of our nation — the United States of America. "The Nipmuc initially welcomed the English to the area, believing there was 'enough land for all...The English held the view that any 'empty' land could be assigned to specific owners and enclosed for cattle and other grazing animals, while the itinerant Nipmuc felt that the land must remain open for the common good." This difference of "view" gave rise to a "subsequent bloody conflict, essentially a battle fought to determine supremacy between two conflicting cultures, which came to be called King Phillips War marking the birth of one nation, and the death of another."* The surviving Nipmuc were excommunicated to Deer Island, where they were "exposed" to the elements, and many more perished from the exposure. Today, the growing trend to set aside tracts of land in open land foundations is an important example of a decolonial landview, but at the same time, there is a great irony for indigenous peoples whose ideas about the common good are only now, after much loss of culture, at the brink of regeneration, ever so small in scale. Today, it is estimated there are nearly 600 people in the Nipmuc Nation.
*Quotes taken from SHS Announces the Discovery of Priceless 17th Century Documents: https://southboroughhistory.org/shs-announces-the-discovery-of-priceless-17th-century-documents/
Four-Stage Proposal General Description:
Create a landscape de-photo using a hand-cut negative in the shape of a tree; form an image of a tree on meadow grass by blocking photosynthesis. The negative-space landscape around the tree image is "exposed" to sunlight and will grow uninhibited, turning lush and green and thereby forming a contrasting exterior oasis of greenery. The positive-tree form (negative stencil) will block sunlight, inhibit vegetation, and ultimately form an image via vegetation decay in the shape of the tree. After the stencil is removed, the dried and brown grasses will appear due to a contrast of colors and textures in the landscape, appearing like a burned tree shadow—visible because of the contrast of "exposures" and the comparison of opposing "views." Finally, after the covering is removed and the grounds re-exposed to sunlight, re-vegetation will occur, and the shape of the tree will eventually fade into the regenerated greenery.
Stage 1 — Stencil Fabrication (Seed of Paradise)
Cut four pieces of landscaping fabric — each 24 feet by 3 feet — to form the shape of an Oak tree. At the lower center of the upside-down image, in the tree design's canopy, cut out the word "UNLAND."
Stage 2 — Stencil Installation (Paradise Lost)
Lay the composite stencil over a grassy meadow so that the base of the tree trunk abuts the edge of the woods' treeline, which will block all light from the vegetation it covers. Hammer landscape fabric staples at regular intervals -- every 12 inches -- to ensure the fabric is secured to the ground. The de-photo process begins, arresting the grass' growth and ultimately killing the grass — a 6-week process to form the tree image. Vegetation will be able to grow through this word, "UNLAND."
Stage 3 — Stencil Removal (Paradise Threshold)
Remove the stencil after 6 weeks. The unexposed grass/dead grass reveals the image of the Oak tree in the shape of the browned grass. The process of regeneration begins.
Stage 4 — Regeneration (Paradise Regained)
Leaving the grasses to regenerate, natural processes will restore the "shaped" grasses over the next weeks and months. By the following spring, it will not be possible to find the Oak shadow or the word "UNLAND."
De-Exposed Concept:
Beals Preserve is an example of a new sense of the term "unland"; Unland: the abolition of the designation of land as ownable; no one can own land; land for all; deacquired land. Southboro is at the heart of the birth of our nation — the United States of America. "The Nipmuc initially welcomed the English to the area, believing there was 'enough land for all...The English held the view that any 'empty' land could be assigned to specific owners and enclosed for cattle and other grazing animals, while the itinerant Nipmuc felt that the land must remain open for the common good." This difference of "view" gave rise to a "subsequent bloody conflict, essentially a battle fought to determine supremacy between two conflicting cultures, which came to be called King Phillips War marking the birth of one nation, and the death of another."* The surviving Nipmuc were excommunicated to Deer Island, where they were "exposed" to the elements, and many more perished from the exposure. Today, the growing trend to set aside tracts of land in open land foundations is an important example of a decolonial landview, but at the same time, there is a great irony for indigenous peoples whose ideas about the common good are only now, after much loss of culture, at the brink of regeneration, ever so small in scale. Today, it is estimated there are nearly 600 people in the Nipmuc Nation.
*Quotes taken from SHS Announces the Discovery of Priceless 17th Century Documents: https://southboroughhistory.org/shs-announces-the-discovery-of-priceless-17th-century-documents/