ScrapEden – Hope and Fear

ScrapEden on the Playa 2006

ScrapEden 2006 Montage

Scrap: n. Discarded waste material, often metal suitable for reprocessing. 

Eden: n. A delightful place, a garden, a paradise.

ScrapEden: n.

1. A delightful garden made of re-claimed discarded waste material, often metal suitable for reprocessing.
2. Black Rock City’s First Participant-Based Community Garden, created by the community for the community
3. A project of the Black Rock Arts Foundation

This year the Black Rock Arts Foundation is creating a collaborative garden installation populated by garden-inspired sculptural elements created from reclaimed, re-purposed and recycled materials, and all citizens of BRC are invited to participate!

The idea formed this year in San Francisco when the Foundation began looking at what it could do, using interactive art as the medium, to promote a culture of re-use and recycling. And while this installation will take place at Burning Man 2006 we hope it will serve as a pilot project for sprouting gardens first in BRC, then SF, and eventually, nationwide. Our hope is that this prototype garden at Burning Man 2006 will not only demonstrate to the citizens of BRC the kinds of projects we support in the default world, and prove a beautiful interactive collaborative art installation at this years event. Help make it happen!

Make aluminum can flowers for the ‘Garden of Detritus’!

We’re hoping to have hundreds. This year, the Black Rock Arts Foundation is inviting Burning Man citizens to create sculptures of garden-inspired flora and fauna from reclaimed, recycled and re-purposed INORGANIC materials for a collective installation on the open playa. We’ll provide a centrally located garden shed (built from reclaimed materials) as a focal point around which participants will be able to “plant”, or install, individual (or communal) creations for collective exhibition.

What you can do:

1) Contact scrapedenbrc@blackrockarts.org for starters. Let us know you want to participate! Tell us what you are planning to create for collective installation. We’ll get back in touch with you and send along some more of the pertinent details. A short questionnaire will help us capture a few things we need to know, such as: the approximate height and footprint of the piece, estimated arrival date, and a rough idea of the installation plan, Ex: rebar stakes!

2) Create an original flora or fauna garden-inspired sculpture, from sunflower to bean sprout, earthworm to caterpillar, garden gnome to toad, out of recycled, reclaimed, or re-purposed materials. These materials must be INORGANIC and their construction must be able to withstand desert conditions (extreme, heat, cold, and wind up to 50 mph) without becoming matter out of place.

3) Send us pictures of your work-in-progress, however great or small, and we’ll post ‘em on the web for the whole world to see!!

4) Questions about the above process can be sent to the same address: scrapedenbrc@blackrockarts.org

The garden shed will be open from 10 am – 6 pm daily and will have personnel and/or gnomes on hand to help with placement and installation of all Scrap Eden pieces.

ScrapEden T-Shirts!

Everyone who participates will receive an original design Scrap Eden T-shirt by Dicky of Burning Man 2005 Dicky Box Fame!

Our thanks to the wonderful Playa Pete and Rachel and Loren Carpenter for their help with T-Shirt production.