Art: Empty Lot by Abraham Cruzvillagas

The latest installation to grace Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall provides interesting comment on the urban and natural environments

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I really love the Turbine Hall installations at Tate Modern. I love how they’ve used that space, turned it into part of the art itself. It would have been so easy to simply convert it into more gallery rooms, but instead they’ve made that cavernous area into both a challenge and an opportunity for artists – how are you going to fill this, how are you going create art here?

The latest artwork is an interesting one. It’s called Empty Lot and is by Abraham Cruzvillegas. It features two sets of massive triangular seed trays. These are suspended above the floor of the Turbine Hall on scaffolding. All the materials are found or recycled.

Nothing has started growing in this series of trays yet. 

Each of the trays has been filled with soil from parks and gardens across London. The soil is being watered and lamps provide light and heat. And that’s it. The artist – and his audience – is simply waiting to see what will appear. It’s very likely that the soil will contain all kinds of seeds; mostly grass seeds, but there could be all kinds of wildflowers and maybe even some insect lavae. The question is whether any of these will develop.

When I visited one set of trays was just soil still, but the other side had a variety of what appeared to be grasses growing. My plan is to go back several times throughout the exhibition – it runs till 3 April 2016 – and see what’s changed. Will the plants that started growing survive? Will more grow? What sort? Will swarms of insects emerge from the dirt?

There are plenty of examples of species thriving in an urban environment, Red Foxes being one of the most ubiquitous, but Collared Dove and Carrion Crow are also survivors

To me this piece represents the interaction between the urban and natural environments: in these times of increasing urbanisation how will nature react and survive? There are plenty of examples of species thriving in an urban environment, Red Foxes being one of the most ubiquitous, but Collared Dove and Carrion Crow are also survivors. Sadly there are many more that are suffering. My knowledge doesn’t run to plant species, but it seems likely that these will be mirroring animals: the most adaptable species will increase while the more specialised will decline and eventually become extinct.

I also think the work says something about the tenacity of nature. The grasses are growing – and hopefully more will do so – despite being transplanted and a lack of natural sunlight. We tend to think that our imprint on this world will be permanent, but it won’t. Humans have had a devastating effect on the natural environment, but this won’t last. The world will long outlive us.

Above and below: grasses are beginning to develop