Yard Birds by Philip Levy;

Author:Philip Levy; [Levy, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SCI080000 SCIENCE / Essays, NAT024000 NATURE / Essays
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)

The interior of Wasserman Projects during Koen Vanmechelen’s installation of the Cosmopolitan Chicken. On the left is the coop with the birds; behind that, the incubating eggs are bathed in warm red light. (Courtesy of Wasserman Projects)

Vanmechelen had been around this block before—many times, in fact. Each of the installations spoke to its local, and largely urban, audience in a locally specific way. Detroit had its own demands too. The CCP had a global eye from the very start and a mission that was just as grand in scale. That was all well and good. But for the project to really resonate for Detroiters—for it be more than a curious, albeit fascinating, experiment in art and DNA—there had to be an outcome that spoke to the needs of the locals. The chickens had to do what they have usually done best—addressed people’s need for food and fit into the larger concerns about food security, food deserts, and the radical and even revolutionary elements of the city’s many urban farms. The soon-to-be Mechelse Wyandotte would have to do its bit for the cause.

Vanmechelen was always scrupulous about the fates of his birds. These were not creatures for neglect or factory slaughter, and the CCP was not a farm-to-table project. At his Belgium farm, the birds were able to live out their lives on their own timelines, even though after a natural death (ideally), their various parts would be put to some good use. But this did little to address Detroit’s issues. Another step was needed. Gallery owner Gary Wasserman took what he called the “art chickens” and arranged to breed them with one of the most successful industrial breeds, the prosaically named ISA White. The breed’s promotional literature (yes, chicken breeds can have promotional literature) reads more like something for a sports car than for a bird. “Known for its balanced performance” and its “strong shelled” eggs, the ISA White’s “high feed intake capacity,” coupled with its “good livability” and ability to “perform well in a variety of conditions,” made it an excellent and robust stock to mix into the weakened streams of Vanmechelen’s heritage breeds.53 That was exactly what Wasserman did in his backyard to create the true Detroit Chicken: the Planetary Community Chicken.54 The new bird is a living convergence of art and science, inspired by need and honest utopianism. It is Hen Fever meeting the Motor City and creating something new and forward-looking.

For now, the birds have to bide their time outside of the city in which they were conceptualized. Detroit does not yet officially welcome them. But that will change, and when it does, the birds will go to one of Detroit’s most successful urban farms. The Oakland Avenue Urban Farm is the brainchild of Jerry and Billie Hebron, a married couple with deep roots in the community. Lot by lot, they have built up a working farm where abandoned houses once rotted. In its day, this part of the city was a thriving neighborhood, and Oakland Avenue itself was lined with shops, nightspots, banks, and churches.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.