out of darkness something blooms

I had a few CDs cross my desk that were recorded by a San Diego new music col­lec­tive called Trum­mer­flora. Their name sounded inter­est­ing, but I didn’t think another thing about it. Then in the book­let of one of the discs I read its definition:

Trum­mer­flora, or rub­ble plants and trees, are a spe­cial phe­nom­e­non unique to heav­ily bombed urban areas. The bomb acts as a plow, mix­ing rub­ble frag­ments with the earth, which often con­tain seeds dor­mant for a cen­tury or more. These seeds come to light and those that can live in this new and spe­cial earth grow and flour­ish.
–Helen and New­ton Harrison

So some­thing beau­ti­ful comes to light through acts of unspeak­able destruc­tion. Sud­denly I though that it was an amaz­ing word and a con­cept that holds out some hope that some­thing good can come out of the worst of sit­u­a­tions. Of course, this is a par­tic­u­larly tainted kind of good­ness, a sort of good­ness that you accept because the alter­na­tive is so much worse.

Trawl­ing around the web as I write this I couldn’t find other ref­er­ences to this word other than in the con­text of the musi­cians or the quote from the Har­risons. Did the Har­risons coin the word? (Of course, just becuase search engines don’t turn up some­thing, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! (Or in this increas­ingly vir­tual word, maybe that’s exatly what it means?)) Or did the word spring to life–maybe in Germany?–after the dev­as­ta­tion of World War II?


Helen and New­ton Har­ri­son. Breath­ing Space for the Sava River, Yugoslavia, 1988 (detail). Pho­to­col­lage, text, maps. [ source ]

This whole notion of bring­ing life back to waste­lands has been one of the major themes of Helen Mayer Har­ri­son and New­ton Har­ri­son, the artists respon­si­ble for the quote in the first place. As a cou­ple they taught at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego from 1969–1993, and dur­ing this time I had the chance to see sev­eral of their exhi­bi­tions around town. Here’s a descrip­tion of their work­ing method in Bar­bara Matilsky’s 1992 book, Frag­ile ecolo­gies: Con­tem­po­rary artist’s inter­pre­ta­tions and solu­tions, quoted on a Green Museum page.

After first­hand study, research and inter­views with ecol­o­gists, biol­o­gists and plan­ners the artists cre­ate a pho­to­graphic nar­ra­tive that iden­ti­fies the prob­lem, ques­tions the sys­tem of beliefs that allow the con­di­tion to develop and pro­poses ini­tia­tives to counter envi­ron­men­tal dam­age. They exhibit their doc­u­men­ta­tion in a pub­lic forum–a museum, library, city hall–to stim­u­late dis­cus­sion, debate, and media atten­tion. By com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the pub­lic the prob­lems that con­front a frag­ile ecosys­tem and the ways in which the bal­ance can be restored, they exert pres­sure on the polit­i­cal sys­tem and rally pub­lic opin­ion in an attempt to avert eco­log­i­cal disaster.

So, while the New­tons would be pleased to see trom­mer­flora grow and thrive, their greater sat­is­fac­tion wouldn’t be achieved until we come to an under­stand­ing of the sys­tems that brought about the orig­i­nal destruc­tion. And if the projects became so suc­cess­ful that they’d anni­hi­late the need for its the artwork’s own exis­tence? I doubt the New­tons would mind, but I won’t be hold­ing my breath that we get there any­time soon.

Read fur­ther: The New­tons in their own words.

June 30 2008 | Categories: art • landscape design • places | Tags: • • • • • | 1 Comment »