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Rewilding Audiences through Agency, Ritual and Empathy:
Jenny Kendler’s Eco Art Reform Tactics
By
NOËL KATHRYN ALBERTSEN
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
Art History
in the
OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
Approved:
________________________________________________
Christina Cogdell, Chair
________________________________________________
Talinn Grigor
________________________________________________
Alexandra Sofroniew
Committee in Charge
2020
ii
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my chair, Dr. Christina Cogdell, for her profound support and guidance
through the thesis-writing process. Thank you to my committee members Dr. Talinn Grigor and
Dr. Alexandra Sofroniew for their consistent encouragement and invaluable feedback. I would
like to also thank the entire Art History Department for their help and support. Thank you so
much to my dear friends and family for their encouragement through this process, including my
Great Aunt Mary Ellen and Uncle Jack Brucato, my sister Lara Hiehle, and Carol Fisher. Lastly,
I would like to express my deepest thanks and appreciation to my mother, Christina Lee, to
whom I dedicate this thesis.
iii
Abstract
Rewilding Audiences with Agency, Ritual and Empathy:
Jenny Kendler’s Eco Art Reform Tactics
In the evolving genre of ecological art, or eco art, artists work in the midst of ever-
increasing environmental crises so they might compel audiences to help safeguard the planet.
However, rarely are audiences offered an immediate and direct entry point into environmental
activism that offers a simple and practical way to take action. Contemporary artist Jenny Kendler
is an exceptional figure in the field of eco art for her revolutionary methodology which combines
a number of eco art reform tactics to engage her audience in ways to immediately benefit
ecologies suffering specific problems. Her prolific career has rendered an extensive portfolio of
these projects that employ the tactics of ecovention, ritual, and the deconstruction of cultural
canons to inspire safeguarding efforts. Further, the underlying philosophies of Kendler’s practice
take inspiration from ideologies such as rewilding, the Deep Ecology worldview, and
philosopher David Abram’s work Spell of the Sensuous that focus on reminding humans of their
inherent identity as part of the natural world. These ideologies lend themselves to the mindset
that nature should be saved for its own intrinsic value versus solely for how it benefits our
species, but also that we are forever a part of the nature we often think of ourselves as separate
from. By tracing the origins of her three most prominent reform tactics through the history of eco
art, this thesis seeks to establish Kendler as a significant pioneer in the expanding field of eco art.
iv
Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1
Ecovention as Artistic Strategy: An Entry Point into Environmental Activism….……..…10
Ritualizing Interaction with Nature…………………………………………………………...19
Deconstruction of Cultural Canons and their Return to Nature……………………………33
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………39
Figures…………………………………………………………………………………………...41
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….53
1
Rewilding Audiences with Agency, Ritual and Empathy:
Jenny Kendler’s Eco Art Reform Tactics
Even in the most urban of cities, goldfinches migrate through in the fall, coyotes run the
railroad tracks, and spiders weave intricate webs on the windows of skyscrapers. And even
within those skyscrapers, nature is alive because we are still (and always) embedded within
our animal bodies. We are blood, bone, guts, bacteria-we are multitudes, ourselves an
ecosystem-mortal and fully animal, no matter how our culture may try to ignore this fact.
And so, I suggest with this installation, the need to reclaim our animal selves, and to
recognize and respect our kinship with the others with whom we share this planet.
Jenny Kendler on her project, Tell it to the Birds (2014-2015)
Introduction
Environmentally-engaged artists generally share a common goal: to educate and inspire
their audience so that they might care about environmental threats and engage in safeguarding
efforts. However, in the field of ecological art, or eco art, a field deeply intertwined with
environmental activism, what entryways into connecting with nature and engaging in activism do
these artists actually offer through their eco art? The birth of the Modern Environmental
Movement in the U.S. began in the 1960s and 70s when awareness of increasing environmental
threats such as devastating water pollution and oil spills spread and inspired widespread
activism. Since this zeitgeist of environmental reform, when such pivotal milestones occurred as
Rachel Carson’s pivotal book on environmental conservation Silent Spring (1962), the first
national Earth Day was held (1970) across the country, and the Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC) was founded to aid in developing protective environmental laws (1970), artists
have undertaken projects to benefit the environment. However, these artist-initiated works were
primarily solo projects meant to inspire people who were removed from the epicenter of the
activity, where artist, not viewer, was the primary agent of change. Today, inspiring activism is
2
still central to the goals of eco artists-and, furthermore, in the midst of environmental crises such
as swelling climate change, ongoing species extinction, and dire pollution in our land, water, and
air, the need for humans to take immediate action to defend the environment is even more urgent
than it was in decades past. Even so, today, rarely are eco artworks presented in such a way that
they create space for audiences to engage with nature in a profound, personal way or become
immediate agents of tangible change. Additionally, the means by which environmental activists
often push for changes in human behavior is often by emphasizing how letting the natural world
fall to harm will negatively affect our species, instead of valuing it for its inherent worth and
highlighting that we are, in fact, part of nature itself.
Ecologically-engaged artist and activist Jenny Kendler stands out on the spectrum of eco
artists for the ways that she utilizes clever and strategic reform tactics in her artistic practice to
accomplish the crucial goal of inspiring activism. Her ecological reform tactics re-sensitize her
audience to their inherent connection with and as part of nature by drawing on a number of
unique ecological philosophies that focus on the intrinsic human-nature nexus, such as the Deep
Ecology worldview that emerged in the 1970s. This philosophy stresses that we must safeguard
the natural world from human destruction not solely because of its benefit to us, but, instead, for
its intrinsic worth as a living system of which we are a part. The strikingly uncommon principal
of this philosophy is clear when considering, for example, how often environmental activist
messages focus on a “preserving our planet for future generations” trope instead of saving other
living systems for their fundamental value. It is this notion, that we are inherently part of nature
itself and not removed from it, that is worth protecting for its own sake, that is the impetus of
Kendler’s practice. She enacts this core belief time and time again by the tactics she utilizes in
her projects. Kendler herself has acknowledged the use of tactics in her artist-activist practice: “I
3
kind of deploy these strategies of beauty that are found in nature and use that as an activist
tool.”1 My analysis explores the significance of the types of strategies Kendler uses and
furthermore how she uses these strategies to engage her audience. I will investigate how she
seeks people’s participation in environmental awareness and activism by examining three of the
reform tactics she practices in her eco artworks-ecovention, ritual, and the deconstruction of
cultural canons. By comparing her to earlier and more contemporary eco-artists concerned with
the environment-but rarely emphasizing the inherent connection of human and nature, or
engaging with audiences as directly as Kendler-I will demonstrate how Kendler powerfully
utilizes these reform tactics based on philosophies and ideas that emphasize the human-nature
connection, and argue that her groundbreaking practice has the potential to revolutionize
methods of inspiring environmental activism through art.
Before delving into Kendler’s background and practice, it is helpful to have a grounding
in the history of eco art. Earthworks and Beyond: Contemporary Art in the Landscape (1984) by
John Beardsley is a helpful introduction to the predecessors of eco art-earthworks and land art
from the 1960s to the 2000s. Such prominent land artists as Andy Goldsworthy and Robert
Smithson are discussed, who, as typical of all land artists, used natural materials like icicles and
stones to create sculptures on site of their natural habitat. Some artists engaged in eco art-related
projects as early as the 1960s, though the term would not be invented until decades later.
However, the majority of artists Beardsley examines are land artists working with parts of nature
as medium but are rarely strategically implementing a plan of ecological improvement. This is
the domain of eco art, the next wave of environmentally-concerned art.
1 Katie Dupere, “How one activist combines impactful art and advocacy to save the Earth,” 22 April 2016, Mashable
website: https://mashable.com/2016/04/22/jenny-kendler-ndrc-artist/.
https://mashable.com/2016/04/22/jenny-kendler-ndrc-artist/
4
The study of eco art practice and its history is an emerging focus in art historical studies.
In Mark A. Cheetham’s recently published book Landscape into Eco: Art Articulations of Nature
Since the ‘60s (2018), the author explains the transition from land art to eco art by pinpointing
circa 1970 as the start of “expressly ecological artworks,” referring to projects by Agnes Denes,
Helen Mayer Harrison, and Newton Harrison that transformed and manufactured ecosystems.2 In
these conceptual projects, artists did not just use nature as sculpture but created entirely new
environments. One of these early eco artists, Newton Harrison, who with his partner Helen
Mayer Harrison recreated living ecosystems in museum settings, concisely explained during an
interview the difference between movements: “‘They used earth as material; we feel that our
works were among the first to deal with ecology in the full sense of the term.’”3
In 2012, To Life! Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet by Linda Weintraub became
part of the growing body of literature on this emerging art historical field, serving as the first
wide-ranging compendium on eco art. Eco art is a newer and often overlooked genre of the
contemporary art world and To Life! clearly aims to elevate its status in its preface: “Eco art
stands out from the din of environmental warnings, policies, and campaigns because its content
is enriched by artistic imagination and its strategies are emboldened by artistic license…By
bolstering eco art’s status as the current era’s definitive artistic movement, [eco artists] are
establishing an entirely new set of standards of measuring an artistic masterwork.”4 Weintraub’s
compilation of contemporary eco-artists attempts to thoroughly define and explore eco-art in
current practice-an admirable pursuit in a genre of art that, because of its staggering diversity of
2 Mark A. Cheetham, Landscape into Eco Art Articulations of Nature Since the ‘60s, The Pennsylvania State
University Press: University Park, Penn. (2018), 31. 3 Ibid. 4 Linda Weintraub. To Life! Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet. University of California Press: Berkeley and
Los Angeles (2012), xiii.
5
categories such as materials, styles, disciplines, settings and concepts, does not lend itself easily
to parameters and definitions. In its early pages, the book offers both schematics and indexes of
art genres, art strategies, eco issues, and eco approaches that clearly tries to establish a basis in
which to approach study of the field, but makes it somewhat overwhelming to conceptualize the
field as a whole. It then offers generalizations of eco-art themes, aesthetics, and materials
followed by the main bulk of the book: the eco art pioneers. This ambitious book seems to be
rare in its attempt to establish, define, and conceptualize the field of eco art as a legitimate art
historical field, and seeks to outline its unique parameters through both concepts specific to the
genre and by canonizing a selection of eco-artists to further define the practice. This effort
reinforces the scholarly desire to establish and explore eco art as a burgeoning field, an art form
that is at times difficult to clearly define other than by identifying the common thread of
environmental activism involved.
The anthology Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene, edited by Julie Reiss and
published much more recently in 2019, is dedicated to tackling themes in eco-art.
“Anthropocene” refers to our current geologic age that denotes a period in which humans have
had the most significant impact on our climate and environment. This thematically-focused
volume is most pertinent to this discourse in its fifth chapter, titled “Ecological art-origins,
reality, becoming,” where author Paul Ardenne broadly examines the artistic strategies utilized
globally by eco artists to cope with environmental change.5 Though some offer practical,
environmentally-beneficial acts, these strategies are mostly removed from direct audience
participation. The insistence in this text and others that eco art is a legitimate and worthwhile art
historical genre reinforce the newness of this field and its struggle to find its place within the art
5 Ed. Julie Reiss, Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene, Vernon Press (2019), 51.
6
historical narrative. This indicates that there are not yet long-established definitions in the art
historical lexicon for eco art.
Taking into consideration the recent scholastic desire to legitimize the young field brings
us back to the significance of Jenny Kendler and her innovations in eco art. Although born in
1980 in New York, the artist-activist currently resides in Chicago. She attended The Maryland
Institute College of Art (2002) and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2006) for her
BFA and MFA, respectively. Self-described as “an interdisciplinary artist, environmental
activist, naturalist & wild forager,” she truly embeds the same care for nature that drives her
practice in her lifestyle. Even her earliest interests and artistic pursuits were nature-oriented. She
grew up in a family of scientists focused on the environment, and spent many childhood hours
exploring the outdoor wonders where her parents raised her in Virginia, as well as in California
during the frequent trips her family took to visit her grandmother in San Luis Obispo. Her
relationship with nature growing up is best summed up in the artist’s own words: “I always
wanted to be outside.”6
Kendler’s devotion to exploring the natural world and our relationship to it only
strengthened with time, and her art school years were spent further exploring themes that would
develop into mainstays of her artistic practice. Notably among these interests are the significance
and intimacy of the human and animal/nature connection. Drawn in 2009-2010, a few years after
finishing her graduate art program, a series of her drawings titled Cohabit depict naked women
with long, untamed hair obscuring their faces, in a number of various positions entwined with
different types of animals. In one, titled Spawning III (Fig. 1), a woman crouches with her back
6 Ryah Cooley, “Jenny Kendler brings the wild to art in her SLOMA exhibit Bewilder I Be Wilder,” May 4, 2016,
New Times Online, San Luis Obispo.
7
to us to showcase a long stream of dark hair that serves as a river for salmon swimming upstream
through her tresses. Another, titled, Oh, Give Me a Home (Fig. 2), depicts a woman crouched on
all fours, fingers pointed into the gesture of horns on either side of her head and her dark curtain
of hair falling before her. In place of flesh on her back, she is instead covered by a herd of bison
walking leisurely through a span of flowing grassland. In this series, human bodies merge with
animal ones, creating new ecosystems and relationships in each drawing. She intimately
entwines animal and human bodies, calling into question where human (which she reminds us, is
still animal) and animal features begin and end. She also touches upon questions of habitat,
ownership, belonging, and interaction between species. In a 2016 interview, a few years after
rendering these images, she is quoted as saying, “We can’t fully understand the human
experience without understanding nature.”7 Kendler’s ongoing interest in reconciling the animal
part of being human, and our relationship to the rest of the natural world-which Kendler asserts
we often overlook through human exceptionalism, a belief that humans are unique among other
living beings and should therefore be valued above all else-is a crux of her artistic vision.8
Another major thread woven throughout Kendler’s practice is the enchanting and
sumptuous quality she imbues into her work. She cites contemporary ecological philosopher
David Abrams and in particular his book, The Spell of the Sensuous (1996), as a favorite read,
one that has certainly influenced her practice.9 The book concerns itself with how we may re-
sensitize our animal bodies to the natural world through sensual interaction with it. This notion is
visible in nearly all of her works-from mossy, lichen-scented dishes that transform human voices
7 Ibid. 8 Gregg Henriques, “On Human Exceptionalism: We are unique beings that warrant special moral value,” January 2,
2013, Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201301/human-
exceptionalism. 9 “Jenny Kendler’s Sensuous Rewilding,” from Inside/Within, December 2015, http://insidewithin.com/jenny-
kendler-2/.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201301/human-exceptionalismhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201301/human-exceptionalismhttp://insidewithin.com/jenny-kendler-2/http://insidewithin.com/jenny-kendler-2/
8
into birdcall, to opal-white balloons participants are invited to pop into an ethereal burst of
milky-white seeds. Her concern with creating multi-sensorial experiences of nature is another
important hallmark in understanding Kendler’s way of engaging her audience.
Kendler is already a prolific artist despite her still-young career, exhibiting in many
shows locally, nationally, and internationally. Her work has been selected for private, public, and
museum collections, including the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University and
the Victoria & Albert Museum. She holds an impressive resume: she has contributed to
anthologies on eco-art, has been invited to lecture at universities and institutions across the
country, has held leading roles on artist boards and participated in environmental initiatives, has
been selected for several prestigious grants and awards, and has held a number of artist
residencies.10 Her position as the first artist-in-resident with the U.S. environmental nonprofit
organization Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which she has held from 2014 to the
present, has been an important catalyst in her career. The partnership provides the NRDC with
someone to promote their environmental concerns and gives Kendler access to the scientists,
research, resources, and funding for impactful public art projects. This has served as a fitting
opportunity for Kendler to further explore the human-animal and nature connection through a
position of activism, while providing her with the opportunity to change the size and form of her
works from gallery-sized drawings, paintings, and sculpture to large-scale, public art projects.
During the first year of her NRDC residency alone, she produced three works I will be
discussing in this study-Milkweed Dispersal Balloons (Fig. 3), Tell it to the Birds (Fig. 4), and A
Place of Light and Wind (For Lost Prairies) (Fig. 5).
10 Jenny Kendler CV, Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019, https://img-
cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/37/assets/DnvOm_jX9X1s9noL.pdf.
https://img-cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/37/assets/DnvOm_jX9X1s9noL.pdfhttps://img-cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/37/assets/DnvOm_jX9X1s9noL.pdf
9
While no focused formal academic scholarship is yet published on Kendler, these three
works as well as many of her others have been discussed in art review articles, exhibition
catalogues, and interviews. In these, she is frequently lauded for the environmental activism
imbued in her public art projects. That her practice is heavily centered on reconnecting, or
rewilding, humans is also typically addressed. She readily admits that she is utilizing reform
tactics in her practice in hopes of inspiring change: “I kind of deploy these strategies of beauty
that are found in nature and use that as an activist tool. It’s operating in a very different way than
I think people traditionally see activism.”11 However, while the significance of her unique art-
activism-nature nexus is often alluded to, little to no commentary or research exists on the
specific ways she uses reform tactics in her practice and how unprecedented her strategy is. In
this discourse, I will analyze three of her most prominent reform tactics that are enforced by her
conviction towards the inherent human and nature connection-ecovention, ritual, and the
deconstruction of cultural canons.
11 Dupere, “How one activist combines impactful art and advocacy to save the Earth,”
https://mashable.com/2016/04/22/jenny-kendler-ndrc-artist/.
https://mashable.com/2016/04/22/jenny-kendler-ndrc-artist/
10
Ecovention as Artistic Strategy: An Entry Point into Environmental Activism
In 1999, American art curator Sue Spaid created the term “ecovention”-a marriage of the
words ecology and invention-to define an artist-initiated, inventive strategy devised to help
improve a local ecology.12 Spaid has since curated two exhibits themed around this concept:
Ecovention: Current Art to Transform Ecologies (2002) at the Contemporary Arts Center in
Cincinnati, Ohio, and Ecovention Europe: Art to Transform Ecologies (1957-2017) (2017) at De
Domijnen in Sittard, Netherlands. Although this term can refer to large-scale projects that
revitalize entire landscapes, such as Agnes Denes’s Wheatfield-A Confrontation (1982) (Fig. 6),
it can also be applied to projects that work on a smaller scale. As the inventor of the term,
Spaid’s exhibits and exhibition catalogues provide the primary context for the word. I have not
yet come across this term in other scholarship focused on eco art. However, I would like to
utilize it in this analysis, as it is a very useful, succinct term that defines an important tactic in
eco art-and, more specifically, a defining tactic of Jenny Kendler’s practice.
Kendler has already undertaken many ecoventions in her young but prolific artistic
career. Although not every of her artworks directly impacts the environment, several of them are
designed to do so; this is one of the most fundamental strategies she utilizes to mobilize her
audience towards environmental conservation. Among the strongest examples of this type of
initiative is Kendler’s project Milkweed Dispersal Balloons (Fig. 3). It was undertaken as her
first project during her artist-in-residency with the NRDC, and initially performed in St. Louis,
Missouri in 2014 – though it has since made its way through several cities and museums. This
project is particularly noteworthy for its ingenuity and engaging design oriented towards
12 Sue Spaid, Ecovention: Current Art to Transform Ecologies, (The Contemporary Arts Center: Cincinatti, 2002), 1.
11
audience participation. For this ongoing project, Kendler uses an old-fashioned ice cream cart to
distribute written materials on the current plight of the monarch butterfly population-of which
90% has declined in part due to a chemical in weed killers (glyphosate) that kills Milkweed, a
life-sustaining plant to these butterflies.13 Tied to her cart are balloons made of biodegradable
latex, filled with clouds of Milkweed seeds intended to be released by participants to become the
Milkweed plant-the only plant on which monarch caterpillars can feed.14
When analyzing images from moments of the project, the social aesthetic of this work
may be better evaluated through photographs of Kendler when she is engaging with participants,
as that is the heart of this piece-when her intent for the crucial first step of this project is fully-
realized. Here, she engages the outsider with information and a process to perform: essential
ingredients for ecovention. After conversing with the artist, participants receive the leaflet and
are handed a milky balloon (Fig. 3), as well as buttons decorated with magnified-images of the
monarch butterfly wings. The button backs feature sharp pins that can be used to pop the
balloons and release the seeds onto the land.
Though the ecovention ends with the participant’s act, the catalyst for the process begins
with the one-on-one interaction between artist and participant. In one artist talk, Kendler
emphasized her value of these one-on-one encounters with community members such as the one
she creates in Milkweed.15 She mentions her interaction with an older woman who recalled that,
during her childhood, she saw the masses of beautiful monarchs everywhere. This specific
13 “Milkweed Dispersal Balloons,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/section/399993-Milkweed-Dispersal-Balloons.html. 14 Ibid. 15 Jenny Kendler, COD Visiting Artist Series, Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, September 20,
2017.
https://jennykendler.com/section/399993-Milkweed-Dispersal-Balloons.html
12
ecological problem was personal for this woman, and she lamented the noticeable decline.16 The
photograph of the artist-participant interaction (Fig. 7) particularly captures the social
engagement, and consequently the social aesthetic, that this piece elicits. Both participant and
artist gain valuable connections to each other and the local ecology by sharing knowledge and
experience while engaging in this piece. Although Kendler says she does not define herself as a
performance artist, she nevertheless puts her audience into the role of performing activist in this
piece.17
Kendler is not the first to enact eco-related performance in their practice; Spaid credits
Agnes Denes as the first to engage with the concept.18 In 1982, Denes’s Wheatfield -
Confrontation (Fig. 6) transformed the two-acre Battery Park Landfill in the middle of
Manhattan into a flourishing wheat field over the course of three months. The monetary value of
wheat yielded by the field was a tiny speck in the midst of the $4.5 billion valuation of the land
itself, situated between the Statue of Liberty and the Twin Towers – a symbolic critique of
capitalist society.19 The project replenished the land and cultivated another function for it as a
food-provider instead of its former use as a repository of human waste. While she worked
alongside volunteers in the effort that culminated in a successful wheat harvest, the most popular
photograph from the project features her alone in the golden field, which emphasizes the agency
of the artist alone. Later that decade from 1987-1990, seeds from the harvested Wheatfield would
make their way through several cities around the world for the exhibit The International Art
16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Spaid, 120. 19 Ibid., 121.
13
Show for the End of World Hunger in which visitors were invited to plant the seeds.20 Unlike
Kendler’s Milkweed, only in this later form of the project were audience members engaged.
Kendler seems to have taken cues from Denes’s project. As an eco-art predecessor, there
are noticeable parallels between Wheatfield and Milkweed: ecovention and opportunities for
participation. However, in these very aspects the two projects differ also. The ecovention Denes
undertook is layered with symbolism and social critique, but it is not necessarily, at least
explicitly, addressing a specific ecological problem. Denes instead focuses on a social one
(although it does revitalize the land-but for primarily human benefit, and not, it seems, for the
sake of nature itself). In contrast, Kendler’s Milkweed and many of her other ecoventions address
a specific ecological issue, how the natural world suffers from it and then provides a practical
entryway for participants to engage in. As for participation-although there were a small number
of volunteers that helped with Denes’s project, this aspect is not central to the message or
impetus to the original project.21 The project required the help of others to complete, but the
volunteers themselves were not integral to the final aesthetic of the project. They were more a
workforce to implement the project rather than intended participants. The later convention to
spread the seeds to museum-goers seems to have been an afterthought to fit a traveling exhibit,
not a crucial part of its original framework.
In Kendler’s Milkweed, participation is the lifeblood of the project-its existence depends
on the engagement between artist and participant. Denes was undoubtedly a pioneer for eco-art
and performance pieces-and someone Kendler would have surely been familiar with from the
20 Phoebe Hoban, “Agnes Denes’ Prophetic Wheatfield Remains as Relevant as Ever,” Artsy.net, November 6,
2019, https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/agnes-denes-prophetic-wheatfield-remains-as-relevant-as-ever. 21 Karrie Jacobs, “The Woman Who Harvested a Wheatfield Off Wallstreet,” New York Times, June 14, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/t-magazine/agnes-denes-art.html.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/agnes-denes-prophetic-wheatfield-remains-as-relevant-as-everhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/t-magazine/agnes-denes-art.html
14
course of her art education, especially with her focus on ecology-using ecovention in a clever
way to send a powerful message to audiences. However, earlier eco-projects such as these, while
important, were often not as far-reaching or impactful as perhaps they could have been. While
Kendler draws from this important ecovention precedent, she cleverly adapts the concept in order
to engage directly with an ecological problem and participants through performance.
Kendler also employs sensorial and aesthetic pleasure to engage participants. The
material and sensory aesthetics of each component in the project go hand-in-hand with the
actions involved in the performance-the milky-white balloons, filled with the floating, featherlike
milkweed, are to be popped, upon which a firework-like burst of seed will appear in the air
(Fig.8). Participants, after enacting their art-activism onto their chosen site, are left not only with
the accomplishment of their act but are also gifted with the beauty of the balloon popping itself-
the opportunity to bear witness to an intimate, whimsical moment alone or with others. This is a
very special, if very ephemeral, experience the project offers. In addition, participants may keep
the more enduring handout and pin to commemorate the event, that may serve as reminders to
continue engaging in ecoventions of their own.
While other environmentally-engaged projects from the last decade such as Eve Mosher’s
HighWaterLine (2007) (Fig. 9) feature an interactive element, the artist does not invite audience
engagement in the same immediate and visceral way that Kendler does. In the piece, Mosher
walked around New York City with a chalk machine to demarcate where the future water line
would exist on city streets due to climate change. During the course of Mosher’s performance,
she would often stop with passers-by to engage in conversation around what she was doing. In
this sense, it was interactive. However, in its initial manifestation, the artist was the agent of
action, the doer performing change onto the streets by drawing white lines. Although it has now
15
been replicated in many cities by many people across the U.S., and is undoubtedly a helpful
visualization tool that may inspire more people to engage in environmental activism, it still does
not offer participants a practical solution or activity to perform that will impact the environment.
In direct contrast, Milkweed is an immediate entryway into activism with a real-world affect.
However, in the same vein as HighWaterLine, the inventiveness of the Milkweed project
also lies in how Kendler makes this work accessible to the public. No admission fees are
required when she is out on the streets with the food cart. She treks around college campuses and
down city streets to seek out participants rather than them finding her. Participants may present
themselves to designated routes if the event is announced, or, by chance, if they happen to be
nearby when she passes-increasing accessibility through her outside route, lack of fees, and
potential exposure to people not necessarily seeking out art, nature, or environmental activism.
By doing this, she broadens her audience by engaging people that she may not reach in museum
or gallery settings. Interacting with the largest possible audience is a practical goal for any eco
artist, as it increases the chances of creating a wider awareness and environmental impact. Since
2014, Kendler herself has enacted this project more than once in different cities and museums-
but, perhaps more importantly-she, like Mosher, has made this work an open-source project that
may be replicated for non-commercial use by anyone who asks her. This is another useful tactic
related to ecovention Kendler employs here-by open-sourcing this project, Kendler creates
opportunity for a larger impact. People who do not meet her while she performs this piece in
various cities across the U.S. may still engage with the project and the essence of its mission,
furthermore, not only as participants, but as the primary agents and facilitators of the
environmental activism Kendler offers through this project.
16
In another participatory ecovention, Herd Not Seen (Fig. 10), Kendler assembled a herd
of sculptural bison on the ground of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago in 2016
as a memorial to the species that once boasted a population of 50 million but, after enduring the
massacres from European-American colonizers nineteenth century, today has only around 500
left.22 While the physical exhibit was still intact, the placement of the tiny herd on the expanse of
the museum floor made the forms seem delicate, vulnerable-almost unbearably small-amongst
the wide, open plane of ground. These tiny bison, presumably made using small sculpted molds
compacted with the soil and other biomaterial, are skillfully created, exhibiting small, sensitively
rendered anatomy-the indication of minute details such as ribs and the impression of miniature
eyes, horns, fur tufts, and hooves are all present on each separate bison. At least two separate
types of molds were used, one resulting in freestanding sculptures and one incorporating a small
platform for the bison to stand on. This sensitivity to individualizing the different bison within
the herd is another signature of Kendler’s deep-looking into and respect for diversity in the
natural world that defines her approach.
These tiny bison sculptures are made from the same soil and seeds of the prairies the
buffalo once roamed in, and at the end of the exhibit, visitors and guards of the museum were
asked to “adopt” these small bison, to take them home and plant them in places around their
community.23 Participants were asked to send documentation of the bison biodegrading back to
the artist, again, creating a collaborative relationship between participant and artist through
ecovention (Fig. 11-12).
22 “Seen Not Herd,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/section/436305-Herd-Not-Seen.html. 23 Ibid.
https://jennykendler.com/section/436305-Herd-Not-Seen.html
17
In tandem with Herd Not Seen (Fig. 10), Kendler held a workshop entitled People’s
Porphyry (Fig. 13) at the MCA Chicago. In the class, participants were provided old Sotheby’s
catalogues and Wall Street Journals, organic beet dye, “and prairie flower seeds hyper-local to
the area where Chicago was built.” They were prompted to tear apart the old papers and combine
them with the dye and the seeds then form them into small spheres that could be tossed outdoors
to create new plants. These seed bombs both symbolically and literally transformed remnants of
our “current imperialist/capitalist system” into “seeds of change.”24 In Kendler’s own words, her
intention was that museum-goers were “remaking this symbol of wealth and empire into one of
public beauty and ecological renewal.”25
Kendler’s use of seed dispersal as takeaways for projects such as this one takes its
precedent from eco artist Kathryn Miller’s seed bombing projects throughout Santa Barbara, the
first to employ this in public art in the 1990s (Fig. 14). In these projects, Miller distributed
packets of seed “bombs,” packed with everything needed to grow plants local to the ecology.
Kendler has clearly taken notes from inventive strategies such as Miller’s, and further imbues
such approaches with her own symbolic meaning. People’s Porphyry is an exploration of the
human constructs of wealth and power and at the same time is a defiant act with the potential to
positively affect the ecosystem.
Another work in the same vein as Milkweed, Herd Not Seen, and People’s Porphyry is A
Place of Light & Wind (For Lost Prairies) (2014) (Fig. 4), also created during her NRDC artist-
in-residency, she photo-collaged thousands of photographs of the native pollinators of the area in
Chicago; the mural of weather-proof vinyl was displayed outside the speakeasy The Violet Hour
24 “People’s Porphyry,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/section/436304-People-s-Porphyry.html. 25 Ibid.
https://jennykendler.com/section/436304-People-s-Porphyry.html
18
in Chicago. The eye-popping colors burst from the laser-printed fabric in hopes of drawing
attention to the fact that 99% of the prairie that once inspired Illinois’ moniker as the “Prairie
State” has been diminished.26 Certain images of these pollinators were embedded with QR codes,
which passers-by could scan with their phones. They would then be given the opportunity
through the QR code platform to sign up for prairie seeds to be delivered to their house. In this
project, she once again offers a simple, direct, easily accessible entry point of activism and
conservation through interaction and ecovention with her artwork. The combination of strategies
such as symbolism, engagement, and takeaways, all interwoven with ecovention, is a powerful
element of Kendler’s work.
Kendler creates entryways into environmental conservation through ecoventions in her
projects-a powerful tactic to engage her audience. Although Kendler also participates in
ecovention in solo performance pieces, her offering ecovention to her audience is an important
part of her activist practice. By engaging people on a personal level and providing them with
small-scale, intimate ecoventions of her own design to engage with, the visuality of her work
takes on an additional purpose-that of the participant interacting in a meaningful way with the
natural world. The viewer not only takes on agency, but becomes a conduit for the work to be
fully-realized, an essential part of the medium and the work itself. This creates a personal
connection with nature and an avenue for her audience to engage in tangible, immediate
ecovention, and thereby, environmental activism.
26 “A Place of Light and Wind,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/section/405972-A-Place-of-Light-Wind-For-Lost-Prairies.html.
https://jennykendler.com/section/405972-A-Place-of-Light-Wind-For-Lost-Prairies.html
19
Ritualizing Interaction with Nature
Alongside her frequent use of ecovention, Kendler also creates ritualistic experiences in
her projects that allow participants to engage with nature in a space removed from the everyday.
She offers spaces to contemplate the “other” of nature through various methods of
transformation. This allows the potential for a “rewilding” of her participants to occur through
their special encounter with aspects of the natural world. While in the biological sciences,
rewilding refers to regenerating a specific ecosystem, in eco art it is an emerging term that refers
to a reintegration of humans with their “wildness” and their innate place within the natural world.
The term is frequently used by Kendler when she describes the more ritualized aspects of her
projects. In our disconnected, technology-driven world, Kendler offers a space to engage in
something elevated and separate from the monotony and familiarity of everyday experience
through the opportunity of rewilding through ritual.
Kendler achieves rewilding in part by aligning her practice with the Deep Ecology
philosophy that encourages humans to respect nature for its inherent worth as a living system
over its usefulness to us. Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss coined this term in 1972, and
alongside American environmentalist George Sessions, wrote a set of principals for it in 1984.27
The philosophy calls for a radical reevaluation of humans’ perception of themselves as separate
from nature by emphasizing humans as inherently a part of the natural world and argues that
humans should engage in environmental safeguarding in order to protect the innate value of
living beings and the natural world versus the way nature may benefit us. This philosophy has
met criticism for its spiritual or metaphysical undertones and its placement of human value as
27 Peter Madsen, “Deep Ecology Environmental Philosophy, Encyclopaædia Brittanica, Accessed February 24,
2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/deep-ecology.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/deep-ecology
20
equal to the rest of nature versus more anthropocentric worldviews.28 For these reasons, this
philosophy has not always been popular in ecological conservation discourse.29
Through the structure of her participatory pieces, Kendler taps into the Deep Ecology
philosophy by offering a ritual to follow that is meant to move participants from their everyday
lives into a transcendent realm of the “other” in nature, where participants may reacquaint
themselves with nature and their own wild nature in an intentional way. By allowing meaningful
encounters with the natural world through her projects, the spark of connection she initiates
between audience and nature has the potential to move beyond the context of her works and into
the everyday lives of participants and their connection with and regard to the natural world.
Ritual is not often defined in the context of participatory art. The only pertinent definition
I have encountered is that of Heinrich Falk in his book, Performing Beauty in Participatory Art
and Culture:
Although participatory art must be observed as an outcome of technologically advanced
societies, its demand for participation and interaction seems to bring this art form again
closer to the performative characteristics of rituals. First, interactive art is strongly
structured by either a computational system of algorithmic procedures…or a preset
framework of rules of participation. Second, like rituals, interactive art must be
instantiated by the participants’ (inter-)actions.30
While this definition touches upon the interconnectedness between participation and ritual, it
alone is not sufficient for this discussion. For the purposes of this discourse, I will be using
“ritual” to mean a special experience curated by the artist for participants to engage in, one that
has a set of prescribed actions for the audience to follow in hopes of offering an unusual and
28 Alan Drengson, “Some Thought on the Deep Ecology Movement,” Foundation for Deep Ecology, Accessed
February 24, 2020, http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm. 29 Ibid. 30 Heinrich Falk, Performing Beauty in Participatory Art and Culture, (Routledge: New York and Oxen: 2014), 85.
http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm
21
moving encounter, with the intent that through their elevated experience, a reconnection, in this
case, to the natural world, may occur.
In the previous section, many of the ecovention projects discussed featured a ritualistic
element, even if the most prominent function was to implement a beneficial act upon an
environment. In Milkweed, participants were asked to pop the special milkweed balloons in their
neighborhoods. Participants would not only be met with the beautiful sight of milkweed popping
before them, but the knowledge that they were making a positive impact on the environment on a
personal level. In Herd Not Seen, participants would again take home a piece of the artwork to
their own backyards that would biodegrade into new plant life, and the ritual of taking and
planting the bison in natural areas, as well as observing and documenting the bison’s
transformation, is a clever and important part of the work-essentially a ritual that may evoke a
sense of empathy and connection for participants by way of observation and perhaps
contemplation of the bison’s plight. In the People’s Porphyry workshop, participants are actually
making the seed bombs in a highly symbolic ritual, as well as planting them afterwards in a
secondary ritual. In A Place of Light and Wind, participants searched the mural for QR codes,
snapped them with their phone to sign up to receive seed packets in the mail, and then, again,
had the opportunity to engage in a ritual of seed-planting in the intimate venue of their own daily
experiences. Each work involves aspects of an enticing ritual that offers a compelling entry point
into environmental activism.
Perhaps the first precursor to Kendler’s use of ritual in ecologically-engaged art is Allan
Kaprow’s EASY from 1972 (Fig. 15). In the piece, he asks participants to select a stone from a
riverbed, wet it, carry it and walk down the side of the river until the stone is dry, and to then
repeat the process. Although quite simplistic, the performance was meant to re-orient participants
22
with the sensations and contemplation of the natural world through ritual. Kaprow is cited as
among the first to create an ecologically-engaged performance piece with participants where they
experienced visceral interaction with nature elements.31 This melding of nature, participation,
and ritual is a tactic Kendler has clearly adopted and evolved in her own practice.
Kendler’s interactive project Bewilder (Fig. 16) utilizes ritual, and was another work
conceived during her artistic residence with NRDC. It debuted at the San Luis Obispo Museum
of Art in Spring 2016. It has since made several appearances at other museums, mostly in
California. The material elements of the project consist of a printed backdrop and fabric
wrapping covered in a barrage of photo-collaged camouflage eyespots from the wings of moths
and butterflies. Participants are invited to have their faces painted with the same eyespots and are
then directed to pose in front of the colorful wall, wrapped in the matching cloth fabric. After
they are photographed, if the images are posted to social media, the torrent of bulls-eyes on the
printed surfaces confuse facial recognition software used on social media platforms, obscuring
the participant’s face and creating an intentional camouflage to the digital world. This
phenomenon simulates the same function that eyespots serve for butterflies and moths, creating a
direct parallel experience between participant and flying creature.32
In addition to the symbolic value, by isolating, magnifying and multiplying a variety of
moth and butterfly eyespots into overwhelming motifs on printed surfaces, an often-overlooked
part of the butterfly and moth aesthetic in popular culture is brought to the forefront as powerful
and dominating subject-matter. The circular forms of variously-sized eyespots, brought to life by
blacks, yellows, oranges, reds, and blues, create a powerful contrast to the stereotypical pinks,
31 Weintraub, 90. 32 “Bewilder (Deimatic Eyespot Camouflage),” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December
8, 2019, https://jennykendler.com/section/436164-Bewilder-Deimatic-Eyespot-Camouflage.html.
https://jennykendler.com/section/436164-Bewilder-Deimatic-Eyespot-Camouflage.html
23
purples, and browns often associated with butterflies and moths in popular culture and consumer
imagery.33 The sea of eyespot bubbles, while taken from actual photos, are presented removed
from their original context in a manufactured and somewhat overwhelming composition. Here,
Kendler, by use of repetition and by isolating, magnifying, and layering the surfaces with these
motifs in such a way, has created an exaggerated impression of striking natural wonder. The
unusual, otherworldly effect lends itself very well to the title, Bewilder. Moreover, in Kendler’s
own description of her work, Bewilder does refer to an encounter and a succumbing to the
sublime elements of nature. A description of this work from her online portfolio reveals that the
title, “extends Rumi’s concept to that of being subsumed by the beauty of the natural world-a
horror vacui of dazzling complexity. The 13th century mystic and poet hints at how we might
thus approach nature in a new way, saying: ‘Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.’”34 As
we have seen, Kendler regularly enjoys finding ways to captivate her audience through sensory
stimuli. In this project, the bewilderment, or overwhelming of natural beauty meant to be evoked
through ritual, is artfully employed to create a meaningful impression of natural wonder on the
participants and viewers. The senses are played upon in hopes of striking a connection between
humans and their sense of place in the natural world, encouraging them to bewilder.
As a participatory, ritualistic art project, the most crucial element of the composition, in
this instance, is certainly the human element. As photographs are the only remnant of the project
fully-realized, they are useful for conducting a brief formal analysis of the composition as a
whole (Fig. 16). Stepping into the prefabricated elements of Kendler’s Bewilder, their face
adorned with paint, visitors become the striking focal point of the piece, posed centrally in the
33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.
24
frame, their gazes direct and powerful or downcast and pious. At the same time, the rest of their
body is almost fully obscured in the camouflage-save for their face and occasionally the hands-
partially disappearing into the piece as well. Both in an immediate, visual sense, and
concurrently in an online sense, participants are partly obscured from us as viewers, creating a
defense mechanism for the predatory perils of having an online presence in the current age with
the same elements from moths and butterflies that they are adorned in.35 This creates a channel in
which human participants may engage in connection, and empathy, with these flying creatures,
through parallel.
If photographs of the piece show us the moment that all elements unite and the
symbolism of the project is complete, then the ritual act of engaging with the piece itself is
another dimension of the project that should be discussed. In Bewilder, participants not only
become a part of the composition, but, as previously stated, are situated as the focal point of the
piece. The preparation to create this moment involves the ritual undertaken to prepare for the
picture. During this ritual, many parallels to a theatrical play or a ritual emerge-participants
become performers, embodying a space of otherness as they partake in the piece. In the same
vein as a ritualistic performance, participants are instructed to clothe themselves in a particular
dress and their faces are painted. They experience the special cloth being wrapped around their
body and neck, their head, sometimes even partially obscuring their face. The cloth utilized in
this piece is often wrapped in such a way that resembles a robe or veil, drawing a noticeable
parallel to dress associated with devout religious figures, such as robes, habits, and veils. Their
bodies are swathed in symbolic fabric adorned with butterfly and moth eyes and their faces are
painted with striking, wild imagery from nature-drawing associations to ancient, earth-based
35 Ibid.
25
rituals. These ritualized interactions prepare participants to inhabit a space of otherness, not only
by the imagery they are shrouded in, but also through the act of entering the ritual and
transforming themselves in a ceremonial way outside of their daily routine.
Specialized clothing and body painting have long been part of religious and spiritual
rituals. From veils and robes used to denote religious standing to body painting for ceremonies
used in earth-based practices, the act of adorning the body with specific ornamentation has deep
roots in human cultures across the globe. By “dressing up,” Kendler is tapping into powerful
ritualized acts to engage participants in rewilding through sensorial experience and imagination.
Further, by inviting her audience to re-wild themselves, Kendler strives to re-sensitize viewers
with not just their connection to, but their identity as, part of the natural world. This ritualized
interaction with nature, or in this case, symbols of nature, of inhabiting a mysterious otherness
that is nonetheless a part of the same natural world we derive from, Kendler strives to remind
participants that we are still very much connected to the “otherness” of the natural world-another
fundamental theme in Kendler’s artistic practice.
There are precedents for Kendler’s approach in Bewilder. In 2007, a pair of eco-artists
who call themselves Red Earth, Caitlin Easterby and Simon Pascoe, initiated their project
Enclosure (Fig. 17).36 Whereas Kendler’s project places participant as agent and focal point of
Bewilder, Red Earth place this emphasis on a single performer to create a symbolic ritualistic
presentation. The work commenced on the sunset of the autumn equinox. In it, a man, with his
exposed body and long hair caked with mud, walked through the landscape that housed earth art
created by humans from the Neolithic period. On his ritualistic journey-meant to evoke the
36 Weintraub, 253.
26
artists’ imagined experience of the Neolithic people-he walked across, over, and below the hills
on the ancient site, through the throngs of audience members, among participants who played
music and carried flags. Incorporated into the ritual were primal elements such as fire, earth, and
music. As Pascoe recounts, “This was an experience. Hard, cold, powerful, unforgettable. [the
audience] were allowed to enter a liminal world, scraping away what they always see so they
could see something else, something other. Many people have never been there before.’”37
Easterby and Pascoe strove to create a visceral ritual that reacquainted participants with the
sacredness of the earth and its place as central to human experience, and furthermore, existence.
As Weintraub explains in To Life! in her chapter on Red Earth:
The artists’ research included controversial studies indicating that the capacity for
religious experience is hardwired into the neurology of the human brain. This
means that experiencing the divine is integral to being human. According to this
theory, this inherent spirituality receded as the components of civilization that
demanded logical accountings develop, but still dominated the lives of the
premodern humans who constructed the site for Enclosure.38
Their research also centered around the Deep Ecology worldview.39 This desire to re-sensitize
viewers to their inherent connection to the natural world through a religious or spiritual ritual
drove Enclosure. While it provided a ritualistic spectacle for participants to revel in, the main
action was still enacted by the central performer-the man moving through the landscape and
crowds.
In contrast, the power of Kendler’s Bewilder when compared to other ritualistic,
participatory eco-artworks such as Enclosure lies in the role in which Kendler positions her
audience. Dressed for the part, posed in front of stunning nature scenery, and positioned centrally
37 Ibid., 257. 38 Ibid., 256. 39 Ibid., 256.
27
for the resulting photograph, the participant inhabits the space of otherness or the unfamiliar in a
similar ritualistic vein that the artist-performer acts out in Enclosure. It is true that there was a
level of audience participation in Enclosure, but it was not the focal point. By Kendler providing
this entry point into the center of ritualistic experience in Bewilder, she departs from other
ritualistic performance pieces centered on nature in a crucial way, placing more agency and
direct experience with the participant.
Given the pleasing sensorial experiences offered in Bewilder, it seems reasonable to
conclude that participants experienced at least some enjoyment or fun from the ritualistic dress-
up and face-painting involved in the project, as well as the act of inhabiting an unusual space,
obscured and posing in the eyespot camouflage for a camera. I want to underscore how powerful
her use of ritual is in her practice, particularly through Bewilder. In Heinrich Falk’s book,
Performing Beauty in Participatory Art and Culture, he explores different ways that interactive
artwork can evoke experiences of beauty through participation. Falk discusses the notion of
embellishment as it relates to ritual in performance art through a literary review on the subject,
and notes: “in Dissanayake’s account, embellishment means a transformation of something into a
ritual object. The embellished object is not a knick-knack or kitsch; instead, it is an object that is
able to open a whole world of meaning attributions that concern not only the individual but the
entire community.”40 This relates to the symbolism of the elements Kendler uses in Bewilder. By
providing ornate and beautiful, enchanting embellished objects for participants to inhabit and
transform themselves through ritual into the “other” in nature, Kendler provides powerful
attributes of a ritual that create a platform for deep, meaningful engagement with these symbols
of nature. This notion of “enchantment” that Kendler uses regularly to engage participants in her
40 Falk, 89.
28
practice alongside ritual, is an interesting method of engagement, or reform strategy, emerging in
the current age of eco-art.41 By creating an atmosphere of delightful sensations, eco artists such
as Kendler remind audiences of all of the natural wonder that surrounds us removed from
“consumption and possession” so often tied to our notion of the natural world.42
Rewilding audiences is a powerful approach that Kendler uses to engage viewers. In
Bewilder, Kendler connects participants to the natural world through a shared experience of
being camouflaged from predators. Kendler’s strategy of activating empathy in this piece can be
experienced in a metaphorical sense through the participant, and a more visual sense for those
viewing the photographs. As viewers of the final work, we are confronted with beautiful
photograph that melds imagery of human and nature-and bear witness to the aspects of
connection, ritual, and enchantment that Kendler offers through rewilding in this project.
Another of Kendler’s projects that offers an opportunity to partake in ritual is Tell it to
the Birds (Fig. 4). The work had two appearances, the first in 2014 in EXPO Chicago and the
second the following year for a special one-day event at Millennium Park, Chicago. The first
incarnation of the project took place indoors and included more elements, while the second one
was held outdoors in the middle of a field. The second was an abbreviated version of the project
with a different outdoor context, so I will instead focus on the first version of the project.
Before entering the tent of Tell it to the Birds (Fig. 18), participants are handed an
informational sheet featuring illustrations and descriptions of 15 endangered bird species. They
are asked to choose their favorite among the selection, and then enter the tent. The tent, a
handmade geodesic dome made from 500 transformed thrift-store t-shirts, had an interior lined
41 Weintraub, 45 42 Ibid., 45.
29
with custom lichen-printed fabric and filled with a microphone, laptop with custom software,
speakers, various audio equipment & cables, LED lights, antique piano stool, scented lichen
sound-collecting dish.43 Participants were then invited to share a “secret” with the natural world,
whatever that may be. Inside the dark, intimate space, they encountered a background of
magnified lichen on the walls of the tent. Centrally placed was the lichen-covered and scented
microphone dish for them to whisper their message into-their voice was then by translated into
the specific song of the bird they chose.
This experience relates to ritual on two levels. First is the intimate act of sharing
personal thoughts aloud in a dark enclosure that is translated into birdsong. This symbolic
context is heightened by the sensory experience Kendler constructs-the magnified
representations of lichen crowding the walls and the forest-scented dish also covered in actual
lichen (Fig. 19). The elements within the tent create an elevated space of liminality in which
participants connect with representations of nature through transformation in a deeply intimate
and profound way. Inside, it is fantastically illuminated with LED spotlights against the green
lichen wallpaper and fragrant dish. The second level of ritual is the transformation of the voice
itself. This phenomenon quite literally changes the speaker’s voice into that of a bird-a direct and
powerful transformation that forms connection, and the potential for empathy, through a striking
experience that blends human and animal in an enthralling encounter.
Another of Kendler’s works, One Hour of Birds, is noteworthy for its way of orienting
participants towards a re-sensitization to nature through ritual by engaging in crowd-sourcing.
Kendler posted instructions for the ongoing project on her website, asking anyone to go outside
43 “Tell it to the Birds,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/artwork/3647847-Tell-it-to-the-Birds.html.
https://jennykendler.com/artwork/3647847-Tell-it-to-the-Birds.html
30
and photograph all the birds they see for a one-hour period. In crowd-sourced projects,
community members are asked to collectively contribute to the larger end-goal of a project.
Websites such as Wikipedia are one of the most readily-recognizable examples of crowd-
sourcing, but this trend has increasingly become a very useful and clever tactic used in the
contemporary art world. Here Kendler employs it not only for others to contribute to her body of
work, but to find themselves in a direct connection with nature through ritualistic close-looking
and contemplation outside. She asks participants to photograph every bird they see over the
course of one hour. Then, she layers the photographs into one image, creating striking
impressions of the subjects in one picture-and in her ideal scenario, she hopes to re-enchant
participants with these winged creatures that are so often overlooked in people’s daily
encounters. Crowdsourcing here seems to be used for an unusual purpose. The project allows
participants to spend a dedicated period of time close-looking and considering an everyday but
often overlooked aspect of birds in our daily lives, creating a space for meditative, ritualistic
contemplation. The pleasing aesthetic of the end-result is but a by-product in Kendler’s ultimate
goal for this project-to create a channel of connection with humans and birds through intimate
ritual.
Kendler has vocalized wanting her audience to experience a type of revelation through
her projects which is facilitated through the rituals she offers. In both project statements for her
works Bewilder (Deimatic Eyespot Camouflage) and Tell it to the Birds on her website (which,
although no author is cited, presumably, Kendler either wrote herself or approved), the sensorial
aspects involved in ritual are mentioned: “Through participation, seductive beauty and an
awakening of the senses, Kendler asks us to allow ourselves to be bewildered by nature-and
move beyond cliché and consumerist engagement, to an engaged ethics of openness and care.” In
31
the statement for Tell it to the Birds, the potential of ritualizing the transformation of human
voice to bird call to create cross-species empathy is discussed: “Though the act of translation, by
its nature, is always inadequate, it also creates an open-ended and unpredictable channel for
connection, suggesting an implicit kinship between speakers. This act recognizes the inviolable
difference of the other, while also attempting the first and necessary step of any boundary
crossing.” In these projects, as in many of her others, Kendler cleverly uses ritual to connect
human to animal.
We see ritual on a more intimate scale in her solo performance pieces where she engages
in her own personal rituals with nature. In these, she can be seen quite literally transforming parts
of her body to meld into nature-as in Offering (2017) (Fig. 19), where she paints her ear red and
fills it with hummingbird nectar to attract the pollinators to seek nourishment in her ear. This
ritualistic use of the artist’s body is also present in Water Lens (2010) (Fig. 20), where she
submerged her face in a pond full of duckweed for as long as she could hold her breath. Upon
surfacing, her face would be covered in the tiny aquatic flowering plants. Kendler also asserts
her agency within an environmental context to improve it in pieces such as Underground Library
(Fig. 21), where she among others creates new environmental factors to improve local ecologies.
Unlike many eco artists, Kendler uses these concepts of ritual and agency to not only enact her
own engagement but to activate her audiences to directly engage with the natural world in
personal, meaningful ways.
The way Kendler connects human and animal through the types of rituals discussed here
is a powerful tactic in her practice. By providing these unusual, specially-curated experiences,
she gives participants a space to engage with nature in a special and meaningful way. These
intimate encounters set the stage for participants to rewild themselves and engage in a deeper
32
appreciation of the natural world, and further, their place within it. Kendler invites participants to
remember their innate wild nature within and the wonder, and value, of other living beings in the
natural world around them. She offers her audience a means to recognize this vital connection
through thoughtfully-curated rituals.
33
Deconstruction of Cultural Canons and their Return to Nature
The deconstruction and repurposing of long-held material symbols of human wealth and
power towards ecological conservation is a prominent tactic in Kendler’s practice. This notion is
strikingly clear in Sculpture→Garden (Fig. 22). For this work, Kendler created twelve sculptures
that she placed along the Chicago lakeshore; the initial ones were installed on the winter solstice
of 2016. Commissioned by the Chicago Parks District, this project consists of a collection of, as
Kendler describes, experimental sculptures, wrought “entirely from soil and biodegradable
binders [such as clay], suffused with plant prairie seeds,” created in the shape of ancient Greek
statuary. The ritual surrounding the installation of the pieces around the park was highly
symbolic; in the same vein that Red Earth’s Enclosure was enacted on the autumn equinox, each
round of installations for Kendler’s sculptures took place on equinoxes or solstices. The
biodegradable human forms would with time transform into self-sustaining gardens of local plant
seeds.
In each of her sculptures, she depicts a version of Venus found throughout the Greco-
Roman canon that has subsequently been rendered in various mediums and times, again and
again, down through the timeline of Western art history.44 She refers to them as Venus I, Venus
II, and so forth with each new incarnation of her sculptures. In Kendler’s own words:
“Sculpture→Garden helps us envision a counterpoint to the aesthetic-historical justification for
Human Exceptionalism-reminding us that we belong to the natural world-and not the other way
around. Even the human body itself is part of the cycles of nature-eventually going back to the
earth to nurture further growth.”45
44 “Sculpture→Garden,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/section/416824-Sculpture-Garden.html. 45 Ibid.
https://jennykendler.com/section/416824-Sculpture-Garden.html
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By rendering her Venus out of the biomaterials of plant and soil instead of the canonical
marble of its Greek forebearer, Kendler is literally transforming the iconic representation of a
nude female body eternalized in stone by an ancient Greek sculptor into an ephemeral, nature-
wrought form. Perhaps this is further a statement on the legacy of Western culture and a
reference to the fall of ancient civilizations-the ancient Greeks created arguably the perfect
human form in marble, yet fell to the Romans, whose Empire in turn came to an end. Now, by
transferring the material of her work to that of natural materials that will soon biodegrade,
Kendler seems to be addressing the hubris of these ancient civilizations-and suggests that,
instead, we begin recognizing our inherent place within the natural world.
Kendler has put forth her own reasoning for the project. After emphasizing the long-
held cultural symbolism of Greek statuary of perfection of the idealized human form, in her
project statement for the piece, she explains:
…in Sculpture→Garden, this idealized [Greco-Roman] form moves quickly towards
multiple ruptures.
First, Venus herself has become more of a ‘real’ body through time, weathering
and losing her limbs, even before the process of biodegradation begins.
Secondly, the works are cast not from the original Greek marble, but from a
home-garden facsimile from a local, family-run statuary company-an accessible
version of the great Classical work-reinterpreted again and again by anonymous
artisans.
Thirdly, in these works, the ‘perfection’ of white marble is countered with the
beautiful perfect/imperfectness of earth, seeds, and wild growing plants,
suggesting that we (artists, humans) perhaps cannot hope to rival the wild,
perfect/imperfect beauty of the natural world.46
Here, Kendler repurposes a powerful symbol in Western art history and recreates it as a nature-
derived facsimile. The sculptures naturally biodegrade to replenish the earth, and leave no trace
46 Ibid.
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of their once-human resemblance behind. This process becomes a powerful symbol for the
ephemeral lifespan of manmade cultural objects. The statues’ gentle deconstruction over the
course of the season mirrors the transitory nature of human life, accomplishments, and objects,
illustrating the universal truth that despite all of our efforts, we and all of our constructions will
one day return to the soil.
This piece is characterized by its ecovention and ritualistic aspects as well, taken upon
directly by the artist herself. The sculptures function first symbolically and then very much
practically to replenish the barren areas along the Chicago lakeshore once it fully deteriorates. It
also utilizes ritualistic aspects of performance art, such as Red Earth’s Enclosure-the artist
traveling to the site-specific location of installation along the lakeshore and installing the
sculptures on equinoxes and solstices is a deeply symbolic and ritualistic act. The sculpture itself
enacts its own natural ritual of biodegradation throughout its lifespan as a sculpture, until it
returns to the earth to take on a new form.
In her People’s Porphyry Workshop (Fig. 24), previously discussed, she, also invited the
deconstruction of material symbols of power in the canon in human history. By using the old
catalogues of long-established art auction powerhouse Sotheby’s and Wall Street Journals, the
most prestigious financial newspaper published in the United States, she invites participants to
destroy and repurpose materials from two imposing institutions of wealth and power.
Additionally, she repurposes these powerful and coveted symbols of power by designing the
participant-made seed-bombs to bear a resemblance to Imperial Porphyry-now no longer present
36
in the earth as it was mined out long ago-but a purple stone coveted throughout history.47 She
recycles them to instead benefit the earth.
In a different piece, Underground Library (Fig. 21 and 23), Kendler enacts another
ecovention embedded with ritual and once again, symbolically and literally deconstructs a
powerful symbol of human knowledge-the book. The project, initiated in 2017 on the College of
Du Page campus in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, is ongoing and has since appeared in other art
institutions both in a gallery and outside-as the final, fully-realized step of the project-buried
beneath the earth in various unspecified sites. Kendler began with a collection of “defunct”
books on environmental conservation from the 1960s, 70s, and onward, gathered from thrift
stores, free book bins, and deaccessioned from libraries-significant, she says, because the
information within has been largely ignored by the general public.48 In an act that renews the
latent materials with a new use, she bio-chars the books, creating new forms of blackened, stone-
like iterations of the pieces. The biocharring process sequesters carbon from the atmosphere,
transforming the books into carbon-neutral entities, aiding in a decrease of factors that contribute
to global warming while also acting as beneficial to plants and animals in a number of other
ways.49 Biocharring, though it has been used previously for thousands of years by indigenous
peoples of the Amazon, is gaining popularity as a trend in current ecological practice. Believed
to have a large potential to help combat the negative effects of global warming, it is achieved by
burning wood and other such natural materials. The char left behind sequesters and traps carbon
47 “People’s Porphyry,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/section/436304-People-s-Porphyry.html. 48 “Underground Library,” Jenny Kendler Environmental Artist & Activist, Accessed December 8, 2019,
https://jennykendler.com/section/457238-Underground-Library.html. 49 Ibid.
https://jennykendler.com/section/436304-People-s-Porphyry.htmlhttps://jennykendler.com/section/457238-Underground-Library.html
37
from the atmosphere for thousands of years. This creates healthier soil that is carbon stable that
may have positive far-reaching positive effects on the environment.
The practice of biocharring in Underground Library results in a practical use alongside a
deeply symbolic act. As many exhibit reviews observed, the work is inextricably linked with
loss-the loss of the object’s former life as a book and the loss the world faces from
environmental degradation. One reviewer commented on the work as “a haunting elegy to books
that have outlived their function.”50 This notion of loss is routinely found in the projects in which
Kendler deconstructs canons-the loss of knowledge (Underground Library), the loss of form
(Sculpture→Garden), the loss of power (People’s Porphyry). But the notion of loss also makes
way for transformation in her works: transformation into a biofriendly, carbon-sequestering
form; transformation into a self-sustaining garden; transformation into seed clusters. Kendler
deconstructs cultural canons of symbolic power to make a point about the nature of humanity
and all things related-that all things will sooner or later return to the earth. Acknowledging the
folly of unheeded warnings and calls for actions in Underground Library, Kendler once again
transforms symbols of human culture to return to and benefit the earth.
By subjecting canonical symbols of culture, art, and knowledge such as ancient Greek
sculpture, precious gemstones, and books, to the various methods of deconstruction:
biodegrading, repurposing, and burning, Kendler cleverly situates herself and her audience in a
position to confront the fact that all manmade and cultural symbols aggrandizing human
achievement will ultimately return to the earth, as we all will. Further, she uses the cyclical
nature of lifespans to transform materials that make space for environmental activism. This
50 Ibid.
38
powerful message underlies much of her practice, and often culminates with the previously
discussed ecovention and ritual. It may, in fact, be her most urgent message to her audience and
the impetus behind most, if not all, of her work.
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Conclusion
The world often criticizes artists for their perceived lack of ability to implement
meaningful change into an immediate, physical reality through their practice. Kendler’s work
dispels this misconception in new and exciting ways, creating accessible opportunities for
tangible change in the realm of environmental activism through her projects. Kendler’s large
portfolio of environmental activist art with very practical applications is groundbreaking in its
scope and scale. It demonstrates that art can be a unique catalyst for meaningful change in the
physical world with the right project design and tactics to engage people in a meaningful
connection with environmental activism.
Ultimately, Kendler’s goal, and a reason eco art exists, is to bring awareness of pressing
ecological and environmental concerns to audiences. While other eco artists strive to bring
awareness and concern for environmental degradation to their audience, few, if any, have created
such direct entry points into environmental activism through their projects. The reform tactics set
forth by Kendler are worth noting by other artists who seek to inspire environmental change.
Kendler strategically designs her works to invite empathy towards nature as well as to educate
and engage viewers by providing information on a specific environmental problem and then
introduces a beneficial action to perform that works towards solving the problem. Rarely, if at
all, are these tactics seen as integrated or to the same extent in an eco artist’s practice, past or
present.
Kendler’s tactics showcase her ability to place people in the neglected nexus between
human and nature. Ecovention, ritual, and the deconstruction of canons of knowledge, art, and
culture demonstrate this and, most importantly, mobilize her audience towards environmental
conservation. First, by creating ecovention projects, she seeks to inspire empathy and to engage
40
her audience in these notions-providing them opportunities to become agents of change. Second,
she masterfully invites viewers into her art by ritualizing interaction with nature through
intimate, sensorial experiences for them to rewild themselves-reconnecting with their place in the
natural world. Third, her art practice also reveals the potential for cultural, material symbols of
wealth and power to be repurposed, returned to the earth and benefit nature-the same symbols
that contributed to society’s neglect of nature are reused to nourish the earth. This potent
reminder weaved through her practice certainly reinforces human relationship with the natural
world as forever succumbing to, and forever in, the same cycle.
Although her practice continually voices the current environmental threats we face, the
beauty and opportunity for change Kendler provides is at least as hopeful as it is cautionary.
Kendler herself has ceded that environmental activist art lends itself more easily to the way she
uses it than other types of activist art might because of its inherent beauty.51 The advantage of
beauty and sensuousness inherent in nature has indeed been skillfully employed to entice
participants in Kendler’s practice, and is perhaps often overlooked in the field eco art. In an age
where we face so much environmental loss and feelings of defeat, Kendler offers beauty as well
as hope through her projects. Hope, and just as important, concrete ways to help the planet in
small but significant ways. Her projects are carefully curated works where audiences may rewild
themselves while contributing to safeguarding this precious earth of which we are intimately part
of-encounters that may bring a meaningful and stirring r