Synopsis

A landscape architectural firm shreds three months worth of its waste paper and creates a provocative art installation about sustainability.

Background

The staff of ah'bé landscape architects hosts an annual art installation/open house in the Los Angeles area. Historically, the events have used a variety of media - including sod, wire mesh, and film - to express concepts and ideas of interest.

In early-2006, the staff decided to pursue this concept:

Increasingly we are all surrounded by promises of a cleaner, greener world, from the products we buy, to the “how-to” articles we read, to the places we choose to live. The allure of these options invokes a strong emotional response in most of us as we hope to individually participate in minimizing our impact on the environment. The growing risk though is that the real purpose of all of this effort will be lost amidst the clamor for our attention. The term “sustainability” has entered the mainstream with such force that it teeters on the verge of becoming meaningless.

In April 2006, ah'bé premiered Shreddings - a piece highlighting the quantity of waste paper generated by the firm over a 6 week period preceding the event. The resulting 67 bags of paper - about 5 trees worth - were displayed as a 150 foot long mass of shredded paper for the public to experience.

The impact was unexpected – many were amazed – and amused – but mostly they expressed a profound sadness of witnessing the quantity of paper generated by a small company in such a short period of time.

It was not only a temporary garden, it was an awakening.

So What? documents the construction and exhibition of the next installation that occured in April 2007. In So What: Shreddings Part Two, the second phase of a planned trilogy of installations, ah'bé created a provocative piece resulting from the shredding of 12 weeks of waste paper.